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APRIL 2019 15 "We came in together and said that we were going to win a national champion- ship," Guy added. "And to be able to hug each other with confetti going everywhere and say, 'We did it,' is the greatest feeling I've ever felt in basketball." "Coach Bennett always talks about staying faithful, and he told us, 'Don't grow weary in doing good,'" Jerome ex- plained. "And that's … an every-posses- sion mindset. It's a life mindset. Just play till that buzzer sounds. "The fact that I missed that floater in regulation and Coach Bennett called the exact same play just shows how much my teammates believe in me, how much he believes in me. We just play until that buzzer sounds. "We all believe in each other and it's the most special team I've ever been on." To even get to Minneapolis, the Cav- aliers not only had to come back from down 14 points to Gardner-Webb — it ended up being their largest erased deficit in the tournament — but they also had to have an improbable play with less than five seconds left to take the Boilermakers to overtime in the South Region final. That play, a half-court pass from first-year guard Kihei Clark to redshirt third-year forward Mamadi Diakite for a buzzer-beating shot, will live on in Vir- ginia lore for generations. So, too, will Guy's cold-blooded free throw shooting late in the national semifinal game against the Tigers, when he calmly sank three in a row to complete the comeback and clinch a 63-62 win. In fact, in each of their final three vic- tories of 2018-19, the Cavaliers trailed not only in the last minute but also in the last 15 seconds. It was just the latest in a series of moments where the Hoos looked adversity square in the eye and overcame it. "Going through what we did last year, it helped me as a coach," Bennett said. "All the stuff that they talked about, I think, bought us a ticket to a national champi- onship. At the time, you wouldn't have thought it, but they were battle tested. … You can't go through the stuff that no one's experienced. "We talked about it, but they had to deal with things, their own stuff inside and the opinion of others, and just come together and tighten in a way. They went after it in terms of developing their own game and then how they played. "They were a joy to coach," Bennett added. "They worked, and anything I said it was, 'Yes sir.' They would just go after it. "We pushed them hard, but we also loved on them, too. I think it was the bal- ance of that and they knew it. And they knew we were in this together. "That's why we said this was our united pursuit. That was our theme, and I loved it because it was everything we had." It was back in early November when Bennett first began to talk publicly about that theme and what it could mean for the season ahead. "You'll ask me and I can't tell you how good we're going to be," Bennett said at the time. "But I am looking forward to it. I like my team. What I think is important for this year is our theme, 'united pursuit.' It's a pursuit. "When you pursue something or seek something, you have to do it with all your might. There's no question about it. It involves our pillar of passion, the pursuit. But it has to be united. "Last year's team was so united and so collected, and I like that as an idea. You've got to be united in your pursuit when you hit the rough spots, when you hit the good moments, and just that idea, recommitting to that. "I like the imagery of it … I understand that is such a key for our program over the years and will be this year, maybe even in a bigger way with all of the talent of our league, the games, and people bringing up the expectations. "We've got to be united in our pursuit of everything coming at us and pursue, pursue, pursue with all our might." The Wahoos rolled off 16 straight wins to start the season, including the team's first four ACC games, and rose to No. 4 in the Associated Press poll. Dur- ing the course of that run, they won the Battle 4 Atlantis in Nassau, Bahamas, by beating Middle Tennessee, Dayton and then-No. 25 Wisconsin, and also got victories at No. 24 Maryland and at South Carolina. The team's first loss, a 72-70 defeat at No. 1 Duke, didn't come until Jan. 19. The second, after four more league wins, came in the rematch with the Blue Devils. Outside of the defeat in the semifinals of the ACC Tournament to the Florida State Seminoles, UVA won the other 15 games on its schedule, including rolling through NCAA sites in Columbia, S.C., Louis- ville, Ky., and Minneapolis. In fact, it was that ACC schedule and especially the timing of games that may have also played a huge part in UVA tak- ing the trophy back to Charlottesville. Virginia set a school record with 35 wins en route to the men's basketball program's first-ever national championship. PHOTO BY MATT RILEY/COURTESY UVA