Tony Bennett doesn’t want to hear about conjecture. NBA mock drafts, which he doesn’t put much stock in anyway, and consideration of players leaving are for after the season. NCAA Tournament Bracketology doesn’t interest him either. Most who project tournament spots see Bennett’s Virginia team as a top seed and heading from Charlottesville to Charlotte to start its tournament participation.
The Cavaliers coach is particularly not worried about those things as he heads toward Saturday, ready to wrap a tournament-style week against the frothing, press-happy and ninth-ranked Louisville Cardinals. Virginia couldn’t hold a late lead against fourth-ranked Duke last Saturday, losing for the first time this season. It quickly fixed that with a win at 12th-ranked North Carolina on Monday. Hosting Louisville will close the most difficult schedule stretch of the season for the 20-1 Cavaliers. That’s where he is focused while others wonder about the future.
“This is about the moment,” Bennett said. “I think if you, again, start thinking ahead, well, I wonder what my draft status is or I wonder what seed we’re going to be. I just think that’s a mistake. It doesn’t work like that for me and it doesn’t work like that for our guys. If it starts getting that way, it’s tough. Now maybe when you’re a game or two (remaining) at the end of the year, you start thinking or wondering about stuff. We’re midway through the ACC season. We got one of the best defensive teams I’ve seen coming in here. Revel in that challenge.”
Louisville and Virginia have little in common beyond a top-10 ranking and Italian-American coaches, the latter a fact pointed out by Bennett. The Cardinals like to press, the Cavaliers do not. Virginia is 349th out of 351 NCAA Div. I teams in possessions per game, preferring to play with the speed of a fatigued tortoise. Louisville is 82nd in possessions per game.
The schools have not played in almost 25 years. The last time they played, Pitino was the coach at the University of Kentucky. Bennett was in the midst of his college career as a sharp-shooting point guard at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, where he played for his father, Dick.
A quarter century later, Louisville will be the third ranked team the Cavaliers have played in a week. Prior to this week, Virginia had played two teams all season that were ranked at the time of the game. The schedule lightens afterward. The only remaining ranked opponent for Virginia following Saturday’s tussle will be the rematch with the Cardinals to close the regular season in Kentucky.
Louisville has three losses this season, all to ranked teams. It lost a rock fight with rival and No. 1 Kentucky, 58-50. The Cardinals lost by a point at North Carolina and 63-52 at home against Duke. They have not endured a seven-day run like the one Virginia is currently on.
Though Bennett doesn’t want to talk about the tournament, this week is similar to what the Cavaliers will deal with when they get there. Assuming they win their opening round game, they play again two days later, just like they did in the past seven days by playing two games in three nights against Duke and North Carolina. Then, they would have a five-day gap until their next game.
The environment around this game will also help the tournament feel. The nattily-dressed Pitino has 640 career wins. He has twice won NCAA titles. He has brought teams to the Final Four seven times. Bennett has not made the Final Four. Last season, the top-seeded Cavaliers were jettisoned in the Sweet 16. Which makes Pitino an easy villain, his dastardliness built through victories. The Cavaliers remain an upstart.
“I think when a team has that kind of reputation and a Hall of Fame coach, I think whoever they play, it’s always a huge game,” Bennett said.
Virginia has faced one other press-addicted team this season: VCU. The Cavaliers tore apart that press to produce layups and dunks at the back end. A year after losing to the Rams, Virginia determined this season that they weren’t just out to break the press, but rather exploit it for easy points. Virginia shot 68.3 percent in that game on VCU’s home floor.
That will be more difficult against Louisville’s upper-tier athletes. The Cardinals are sixth in the country in defensive efficiency. Much of what happens for them is based around 6-foot-8 Montrezl Harrell, a ferocious forward.
“He’s one of the fiercest competitors I’ve been around,” Bennett, who worked with Harrell on the Team USA U-19 team, said. “He is a warrior between the lines. He’s motivated by that. The bigger the game, the bigger the setting, he seems to thrive on that.”
Harrell’s presence is one more reminder for Bennett that Saturday’s game is the target. Bracket seedings, youngsters being tantalized by the draft, that’s to come. Louisville is enough to fill the mind for now.
• Todd Dybas can be reached at tdybas@washingtontimes.com.
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