Bennett to team: Commit, work hard, or we don’t want you here

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Moments after a stinging, one-point home loss to St. Bonaventure in the NIT quarterfinals Tuesday night, Virginia coach Tony Bennett turned his attention to the future.

The Cavaliers had a distinct advantage over the visiting Bonnies, a team that was assigned three consecutive road trips and had an exhausted roster that was only six-deep. Four of its starters played the entire 40 minutes, but prevailed mostly because UVA was haunted by a familiar problem: stretches without scoring.

Virginia scored its last bucket with 3 minutes to play, leading 50-45 on an Armaan Franklin 3-pointer. The Cavaliers managed only one more point, a free throw by Franklin with 30 seconds to play. He missed the back end of his one-and-one, then Jayden Gardner missed the front end of a one-and-one with 18.8 seconds to play.

UVA lost, 52-51.

Last Sunday, Bennett’s team led 55-49 on another Franklin triple with 5:41 at North Texas, didn’t score another point in regulation and finally won 71-69 in overtime.

As much as Bennett would have loved to have gotten his team to next week’s NIT final four at Madison Square Garden, the Cavaliers played with fire by going stretches without scoring, something knowledgeable Wahoo fans expected coming into a season that ended with a 21-14 record.

Bennett addressed the future of his program during his post-game talk and directly challenged his players to make next season a much better one than this past campaign.

“This offseason is important,” Bennett said. “A lot of these young men are going to have to decide how committed, how hard they’ll work, how much they’ll improve their skills, how much tougher they can become and how much they love it. They have to take a step.”

His words grew stronger as his thoughts continued.

“We must improve every player that returns in this program,” Bennett said. “They better take a step in terms of commitment and their strength and their ability and to commit and work. If they don’t want to, then they shouldn’t be here.”

I don’t ever remember Bennett saying that after a season during his time here, at least publicly. While he added that he believed his players would put in the work, it made me wonder if he wasn’t satisfied with the work they had put in this past offseason.

“[The commitment and work] is the entry for this high level, so they’ve got to decide, and nothing’s guaranteed, playing time is not guaranteed. You work, you come together,” the coach added. “We were short-handed this year with a tight rotation so guys got invaluable experience.

“I hope there’ll be more competition next year for playing time, which is healthy. I want to be real with the new guys coming in. Everybody’s all excited about this new class. They’ll have their work to do.

“It’s hard coming in as a first-year. You’ve got to have patience and if they’re good enough, they’ll play. If they’re not ready, they’ll improve and they’ll get ready at some point. Certainly those guys that come back that played a lot, they should be better. The guys that didn’t play that much this year, eye-opening experience and I expect some good continuity.”

Presently, Bennett doesn’t know who’s returning and who’s not, something he hopes will be decided sooner rather than later. He plans to have meetings with all his players like he traditionally does at season’s end, after the dust settles.

Most everyone has eligibility remaining, some seniors have decisions to make, and then there’s the transfer portal to consider.

“Welcome to the new age of college basketball,” Bennett said somewhat sarcastically. “Some guys may have decisions made in their mind. We’ll sit down and be honest. I’ll share what I see. We’ll do that very soon.”

Virginia also has one of the top-rated recruiting classes in America coming in with four, 4-star players having already signed.

While Bennett was impressed with how this team improved from early-season struggles and losses to Navy, JMU and NC State, to wins over Duke and Miami toward the end, he wants to eliminate bad losses for the future.

“They’ve got to look in the mirror and say, ‘Hey, I’ve got to go to work in the weight room, I’ve got to improve my shot,’” Bennet said.

That’s life in the pressure-cooker of being a member of the ACC, where most games are cliffhangers. The coach loved his team’s resiliency, bouncing back after losses, and he loved that he had a team of high character that truly pulled for one another, and was rejoiceful for teammates, reminding him of one of his mantras.

“You have to have young men you can lose with and a staff, and they were that,” Bennett said, but also reminded of the challenges ahead.

“There’s a lot of expectations and pressure on these young men, whether they put it on themselves or from outside,” Bennett said. “Where this program has been the last eight years, it has been at a level that’s second-to-none. So you come in and maybe you don’t have quite that kind of talent or experience … that’s a lot to live up to.”

He wants his team to improve its shooting, to get tougher and stronger.

A team trip to Italy for a series of games should help in various areas, blending the new talent with the existing team if nothing else. The real work, the real improvement will have to come before that, as the players put in the time and effort in the offseason.

The message is clear, though — grow your game or don’t expect much floor time come November. Bennett expects another long run of NCAA tournaments. Those invitations are earned in the offseason when no one is looking.