Last year after their national championship, virtually all the pundits picked Virginia fairly well up in the pre-season rankings. This is not usual. It is hard to forget the year before. However, I thought they were unduly optimistic. When a team loses three players of the caliber of those the Hoos lost, who were not freshmen, it is going to take more than a raw freshman to replace them. The rankings, it seems, were a tribute to Coach Tony Bennett. "Any team coached by him is going to be good, no matter who is playing," the sages were saying.
As it turned out, they were perfectly right - it just took a while for it to come true. Virginia is like Wisconsin in that they develop players. Their recruits are generally not one-and-doners, and they stay, and they get better under some of the best teachers in the game. By the time the final AP Top 25 poll was issues in this truncated season, Virginia was back up to 16th, after having tanked out of the poll earlier in the season. Jay Huff started playing like a monster in the middle, and the Hoos went on a late-season winning streak.
So, pundits, I will say that you were right, and I was wrong. Virginia was that good, but we just had to give Coach Bennett time to do what he does best, which is to teach basketball.
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