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This story has been updated to reflect the fact that Virginia won the national championship against Texas Tech.
MINNEAPOLIS – Tony Bennett knew that he had to change Something.
For years, since the very beginning of his coaching career, the head coach and future member of the Virginia Hall of Fame had stood up to basketball. He was going to defend himself in a certain way. He was going to run a certain crime. He was going to play at a certain pace and it had not missed him yet. He had won in Washington, more than was possible in a program like Washington. He has turned Virginia into a powerhouse that has won four of the last six regular season titles from ACC. At present, the Cavaliers are arguably the best basketball program of a conference bringing together Duke, North Carolina, Louisville, Syracuse and the state of N.C.
Think about it.
Even with all the critics and all the jokes and even all the burnouts of the tournament, there was no reason to change what he did, until Virginia's plant would undergo this that we could call forever the most embarrassing loss in the history of college basketball.
No. 16 UMBC 74, No. 1 Virginia 54.
"This situation has led me to look at a lot of things," Bennett said. "From a basketball point of view, it was a crucial moment."
And it was this moment, the defeat that caused the change in Virginia Basketball, a change that changed the story of the program and the legacy of the coach who built it.
"What we've learned," said assistant coach Brad Soderberg, "is that it takes several guns depending on what the teams can do."
Without this loss, Bennett and Virginia may not have been willing to make the changes necessary to become a national champion.
Three days after The Loss, Bennett called his leader and leader, Ty Jerome.
"I know we're supposed to take a break," he said, "but can we meet for lunch?
He had in mind Zazu's, a place in Charlottesville now known as Pico Wrap, and above the rolls of potatoes, eggs and cheese, Jerome and Bennett laid the groundwork for the changes that would eventually change. everything you thought you knew about Virginia.
"He said to me," I want to find ways to spread the word better, "recalls Jerome," to touch more the painting and to give you the opportunity to create for each other ".
It was not so difficult to understand how the UMBC disaster had happened. The Retrievers played a foul four. They place qualified guards and perimeter players all over the field, they spread things out and make it difficult for them to be protected without becoming small. De'rere Hunter, the best and most versatile player in Virginia's lineup, came out with a broken wrist and left Virginia limited. Hunter is the play that makes the Wahoos a match. He is the best all-round defenseman in all of college basketball. When Virginia won North Carolina earlier this year, Hunter was paired with Coby White, Cameron Johnson and Luke Maye at different times of the game. It would not have been a problem to throw him on one of the guards of the UMBC, especially as he is kind enough to enjoy the game at the other end of the field.
However, it was a problem to put Jack Salt, Isaiah Wilkins and Mamadi Diakite on the market.
They could not stay with these little guys from UMBC. They were also not good enough on the offensive to take advantage of the offensively offensive side.
"Isaiah Wilkins is as good a defender as you will ever see," said Brad Soderberg, assistant coach at Virginia, who has been with Tony Bennett for a very long time. "But offensively, he is not such a powerful weapon."
"To Tony's credit, after this painful defeat, he re-evaluated a lot of things. How can we better defend? How can we better score? What is missing?
The answer was 8,600 miles and a 24-hour fast flight.
Because, as fate would have it, the savior of Virginia Basketball is a Kiwi.
His name is Kirk Penney and he is a legend of the welded basketball community in New Zealand. He played twice in the NBA. He has rebounded all over Europe. He won the titles and MVPs while playing for the New Zealand Breakers. Aside from Steven Adams, there may not be a better-known basketball player in this country.
And his connection with Virginia is not so difficult to understand.
Tony Bennett coached the North Harbor Kings for two seasons after his career in New Zealand. The Kings had a 17-year-old phenomenon that Bennett was able to attract to Wisconsin when he accepted a position in his father's team in Madison. This phenomenon was Penney, who would score 1,454 career points for the Badgers.
"He's like a little brother to me," said Bennett.
Penney played everywhere. He saw all the existing basketball styles, and Bennett knew it. So he reached out his hand.
"In all your experiments," he asked, "did you publish any information that would open the court any further?"
Penney did it, so he flew to Charlottesville to see if he could help Bennett and his staff come up with something. He stayed there for a few days, and the answer they finally reached was a security control offense – "our flow continuity", as Jerome says, is not so different from the offense basic as half of the teams in America ran.
The concept is extremely simple: they throw a bullet screen on one side of the ground and three shooters on the other side. The actions of the offense, assuming that Virginia can not have a clear appearance of the balloon's initial screen, lead them directly into another screen on the opposite side of the ground. And so on.
"Tony usually does experimental things during our summer sessions, just to try, but this is the first year we've been doing things that Kirk has helped us with," Soderberg said. "If has greatly helped our offense."
"He spoke to me about the number of possible options in our flow continuity offense," Jerome said. "He tried to give us as many comments as possible."
"He helped me with the empty side ball screen," said Mamadi Diakite.
"It's great for me," said Kyle Guy. "I can get out of the ball screens. And when there is a bullet screen, someone has to mark the roll, which means that I am open. And if they do not blame me, then that means that Mamadi or Jack are open. "
Virginia players are not the only ones to have noticed the difference.
"This creates a different look for them than in the past, when they had big players like Anthony Gill," said a coach from ACC. "They will run and put you in many actions because of their ability to stretch the floor, especially when Hunter is four. Then, when Jay Huff is at the helm of five, they will have four or five guys who can do a three. "
Would they be national champions if they had not made this change?
"No way."
Maybe the offense does not matter.
Maybe Virginia would be here in Minneapolis to celebrate a national championship regardless of how they play. After all, Virginia did not really launch her ball screen program against Auburn. They were standing at 10 minutes and they had only five minutes remaining on Saturday night because the Tigers were helpless in the face of Virginia's attack that blocked the setbacks.
Virginia's defense is what makes them dominant. There are at least two if not three or four NBA players on this list. And if we want to be perfectly honest, if Virginia won the national title, it's thanks to Kihei Clark's clutch last weekend and six points scored by Kyle Guy in the last 7.6 seconds of Saturday night. . It took another resilient effort to win a memorable overtime victory over Texas Tech in the title game.
But it would be foolish to ignore the changes made by Virginia, if only because changes had been made.
"He told us that he was going to change things," Hunter said, initially skeptical, "it was just crazy to see him."
And it's fair to ask: if Virginia does not lose to UMBC, if they had just done what they normally do, win two or three games before the end of the tournament, would Bennett have made the effort to reinvent his team, install a second complete offense, to reach an old friend on the other side of the planet.
In the business world, it says: what brought you will not take you there.
At some point, you have to change, adjust or adapt.
Tony Bennett then realized that it was the most embarrassing defeat in the history of NCAA tournaments, which allowed Virginia to win the first national title of the NCAA. history of the program.
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