Virginia has lost six games in the last two seasons. Five of those losses have come by 10 points or fewer. Five have come to Duke (twice), Virginia Tech, West Virginia and Florida State.
Losing to UMBC in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, 74-54 wasn’t just a historic loss, it was unprecedented anomaly. And as the calendar has turned and the Cavaliers have exorcised the demons of that loss with a Final Four run, they’re reminded of where they were a year ago, compared to where they are now.
On March 16 of 2018, head coach Tony Bennett was tasked with picking two players to join him on the podium postgame, for the assembled media and the millions watching on TV to see. He didn’t want to bring up the two senior leaders — rather, he assigned the duty to the two sophomore guards — Ty Jerome and Kyle Guy — the faces of the future.
“We’re going to go up there, and it’s going to be one of the hardest things you ever have to do, how you’re feeling and what you’re going to have to respond to,” Bennett said, “but it’s going to mark your life, and I said, and this is going to be something we’re going to try to overcome.”
Bennett received national acclaim for how he handled the aftermath of that loss, gaining immediate perspective on what it meant, and handling it with class. Only two weeks later, he’d be back at the Final Four, receiving his award as the AP National Coach of the Year.
For other coaches on Virginia’s staff, dealing with the loss wasn’t as easy.
“For two weeks after, I didn’t leave my house. I literally, I stayed at home,” said now-associate head coach Jason Wiliford. “My wife would check on me. She would say, ‘Are you OK?’ I would say, ‘Just bring me a beer and food, and I’m fine.’ I did that honestly for about a week. I grew out a beard, I didn’t cut my hard. It was hard.”
For as good as the Cavaliers are this year, they might have been considered even better last year, spending a month at the end of the season as the No. 1 ranked team in the country. They were the undisputed No. 1 overall seed, getting a virtual home game in Charlotte, North Carolina.
But after entering halftime with the game tied, UMBC raced out to a quick lead early in the second half, and pulled away before the Cavalier ever mounted a serious comeback. Virginia hadn’t allowed 74 points to a team all season.
“No one will know, no one, because there’s never been any team that’s had to do that,” said assistant coach Brad Soderberg. “To face all the garbage that went with losing for the first time to No. 16, and then, get all the way back. Become 31-3, again. We were 31-3 last year, and the devastation, you could cut it with a knife. It was incredible.”
Soderberg said he had chest pains as UVa went down by 14 points in the first half against No. 16 seed Gardner Webb. It felt like and looked like the nightmare was happening all over again, until the Cavaliers came back in the second half to win.
It was around this time last year that Virginia coaches started meeting with players, started hitting the recruiting trail — an activity that Williford said brought some healing to the whole situation. Virginia’s third assistant, Ron Sanchez, left soon after the loss to become the head coach at Charlotte, returning to the city where the devastation happened.
“It was our history, we had to grow and learn from it,” Williford said, who added he didn’t watch another NCAA Tournament game after losing.
Now, Virginia is that team that’s still playing, as thousands of coaches from around the country converge on Minnesota for conventions and reunions. Virginia is still playing, and its history and redemption story will further be tested against Auburn, when the two teams face off in the Final Four on Saturday.
“From a basketball standpoint, that was such a pivotal moment and devastating in so many ways and humbling that I knew we had to be there for each other in ways we never would have had that not happened,” Bennett said. “So it was about sitting together, talking, and just working through stuff and battling through it, and trusting each other.”
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