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14 CAVALIER CORNER and you keep staying together, good things happen." At UVA, Bennett inherited a roster filled with players recruited by his predecessor, Dave Leitao. Not all of them embraced Bennett's approach to basketball — or the pillars on which he based his program: humility, passion, unity, servanthood and thankfulness. Several players who began that year in the program, including All-ACC selection Sylven Landesberg, were gone by the end of the 2009-10 season. "It wasn't a fairy-tale ending for everyone on that team," former Virginia center Jerome Meyinsse said. Former UVA guard Sammy Zeglinski re- members the team meeting in 2009 during which Bennett first laid out his vision for the program. "You could tell it was very different from Day 1," Zeglinski said. "It was just pretty cool to witness. Over the three years I was there with him, the whole program started to change, the whole culture started to change." For Bennett's first six years at UVA, his as- sociate head coach was Ritchie McKay, who left in 2015 to begin a second stint as Lib- erty's head coach. Sanchez was a Virginia assistant for nine seasons before leaving in 2018 to become head coach at Charlotte. (Sanchez rejoined Bennett's staff at UVA in 2023-24 as an associate head coach.) The Bennett era at UVA started well. The Hoos opened the 2009-10 season with an 85-72 victory over Longwood at JPJ, and they won their first three ACC games for the first time since the 1994-95 season. "I remember Sports Illustrated called, and they wanted to do an interview with Tony about how well the season was going," San- chez said. "Tony said, 'No, it's not time for that yet.' He knew that it was going to be a challenging road ahead. I think he's always had great perspective as to what's going on." Three days after winning at North Carolina for the first time since January 2002, Vir- ginia beat North Carolina State at John Paul Jones Arena to improve to 14-6 overall and 5-2 in ACC play. Then came the crash. The Hoos dropped their final nine regular-season games. They won one game in the ACC Tournament and finished the season with a 15-16 overall record. Bennett's second team at UVA finished 17-15. "It was like a roller-coaster ride," former point guard Jontel Evans said of those first two seasons. "We definitely had our ups and downs, but it was a process, and to have a successful process we just had to get the guys that wanted to buy in. "Those who didn't want to buy in, here's the door. Simple as that." Throughout the rebuilding process, there were encouraging signs. In 2009-10, in ad- dition to upsetting UNC, Virginia defeated No. 24 UAB and swept North Carolina State. In 2010-11, after losing 106-63 to No. 13 Washington at the Maui Invitational in Hawaii, UVA bounced back to win at No. 15 Minnesota, defeated Virginia Tech twice and upended Maryland in College Park. The Hoos won four of their final five regular- season games and headed to the ACC Tour- nament in Greensboro, N.C., hoping to play well enough to earn an invitation to the NIT. Instead, they suffered a monumental col- lapse in a first-round loss to Miami. The defeat "was deflating," Sanchez said, "but there were tremendous lessons there. I remember us coming back the following season and applying things literally the first week of practice that we'd learned from that game. "Everybody wants success, and nobody wants the adversity or the obstacles. I'm not sure you can have one without the other." THE BREAKTHROUGH Bennett's breakthrough at UVA came in 2011-12. Led by All-ACC forward Mike Scott, who'd missed most of the previous season with an injury, the Hoos advanced to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2006-07. "It was little milestone after little mile- stone," McKay said. "The wins kept layering on top of one another." In 2012-13, Joe Harris scored a career- high 36 points in Virginia's upset of Duke at John Paul Jones Arena. The Hoos missed the NCAA Tournament that year but advanced to the NIT quarterfinals with a roster that, in addition to Harris and Akil Mitchell, In 15 seasons at Virginia, Bennett won 364 games — the most by a head men's basketball coach in school history — and lost 136 for a .728 winning percentage. (Photo courtesy UVA)