Scattershooting: Is Bennett a 'young Mike Krzyzewski'?

Scattershooting around the ACC, while thinking isn’t it cool that Virginia basketball is relevant again in the league?

I can’t help but think back to the day that Jon Oliver, UVa’s executive associate AD, told me that Tony Bennett was coming to town. Now, Oliver and myself have had our differences, but his vision about Bennett was spot on.

“This guy is a young Mike Krzyzewski,” Oliver said, so excited he could hardly contain himself.

Certainly, Bennett has a ways to go before his career can be compared to Krzyzewski’s, but the Cavaliers’ coach is off to a good start. In his third season, with really only two recruiting classes under his belt, Bennett has UVa sitting at 14-1 heading into Cameron Indoor Stadium this coming Thursday night.

Every Wahoo knows that Virginia hasn’t gotten off to a start like this since the days of Ralph and while we aren’t comparing this present group of Cavaliers to those of 1981-82, most UVa fans are elated and encouraged about the future.

Oliver’s comparison to a young Krzyzewski makes sense. They both believe in discipline, defense and character. Practically every coach who has walked into JPJ the past three years have raved about Virginia’s ability to play defense, including Coach K.

I remember last year when UVa was struggling and lost to Duke in Charlottesville. Krzyzewski told Cavalier fans not to lose faith because they had the right guy in Bennett, a guy who did things the right way, and would eventually turn Virginia into a winner.

With the massive coaching turnover in the ACC over the past two seasons, Bennett ranks fifth in seniority behind Krzyzewski, UNC’s Roy Williams, Virginia Tech’s Seth Greenberg and Florida State’s Leonard Hamilton.

Krzyzewski, the winningest coach in major college basketball history, will be 65 next month. Williams is 62.

So, could it be that if Bennett continues to build UVa’s program the way that Krzyzewski built Duke, that Bennett could eventually become an icon in ACC basketball?

Remember that many Blue Devils fans took a long time to warm up to Krzyzewski after he stumbled out of the blocks and whiffed on a few big-time recruits. Coach K likes to joke now about how in those days there were the Iron Dukes (the school’s athletic fundraising arm) and the “Very Concerned Iron Dukes,” who wondered if the school had make the wrong choice.

Bennett is starting to accumulate some star power and if he can take the Cavaliers to the NCAAs this season, which we predicted a year ago, then he could possibly land a couple more “breakthrough” recruits as Krzyzewski did.

UVa’s ‘D’

We weren’t surprised that Krzyzewski heaped praise on Bennett’s team during this week’s ACC coaches teleconference.

When the Cavs visit Cameron on Thursday, a place they haven’t won since 1995, it will be interesting to see if Virginia plays better defense than the Blue Devils.

Right now, Virginia is blowing the rest of the ACC away on one very overlooked category: opponents assists. The Cavaliers’ collective opponents are averaging only 6.7 assists per game. No other team in the league is anywhere close to that number, no one ranking is less than double digits as a matter of fact.

What does that tell us? That Virginia is playing great defense, which we already knew, but that guards Jontel Evans and Sammy Zeglinski are playing outstanding defense. Evans just might be the best “on ball” defending guard in the ACC.

In your face

When Kryzewski was talking about Virginia’s defense on Monday, he emphasized how the Cavaliers understand their jobs and play together, which has been a trademark of Duke basketball for decades.

Bennett and Coach K are on the same wavelength when it comes to defense.

“It’s tough to get into the lane on them,” Krzyzewski said. “They try to take away the post with the double team on the low post all the time. The double team is one thing, but what the other three guys are doing … is as that trap goes there, the other three react instinctively to where they’re supposed to be. They know their duties and what they’re trying to get accomplished.

“They’re an outstanding defensive team,” Coach K continued. “There are many different ways to play defense. The way they play it is really a beautiful way to play. It doesn’t force as many turnovers, but you don’t get many assists (see above) and you don’t get many second shots, and it’s tough to get in the lane. You gotta shoot well against them and you gotta defend them.”

The Duke coach said because of those things that Virginia is ahead of most teams in the ACC right now, perhaps including his own team.

“For us, we’re not where they are as far as being instinctively reactive,” Krzyzewski said.

There’s not question that there’s a mutual admiration society going on here. Bennett has often pointed to the Duke coach for his incredible accomplishments, arguably the most impressive of all time. During the teleconference, Krzyzewski threw a few personal compliments Bennett’s way.

“He’s an outstanding coach,” Krzyzewski said. “Good guy — really good guy — and good for the game. And [the Cavaliers] know what they’re doing, not just individually but collectively, on every exchange.”

HoF connection

While Miami freshman Shane Larkin failed to score against Virginia in the Hurricanes’ close loss to the Cavaliers over last weekend, it didn’t totally damper his weekend.

Larkin’s father, Barry Larkin, was selected to the Baseball Hall of Famer. Barry, of course, starred for the Cincinnati Reds for years.

“Shane is a very popular young man,” said Miami coach Jim Larranaga, who formerly served as an assistant coach at UVa under Terry Holland back in the aforementioned Sampson days. “Shane gets along great with the older guys. We only have two freshmen and Shane really fits in well.

“Barry has been down with his wife, Lisa, to many of our Miami games at home,” Larranaga said.

Haven’t forgot football

We applaud that BCS officials began meetings Tuesday to closely examine the way it does business and hopefully the very least that fans will get out of this examination is a Plus-One format (a four-team playoff).

Fans are so fed up with the BCS that other than the national championship game, most of the major bowls suffered their lowest TV ratings in years. The championship game is the only postseason game that matters to the general public, which has finally caught on.

ESPN reported yesterday that Alabama’s 21-0 win over LSU drew a 16.2 rating, the second-highest of any program in the history of cable TV, only surpassed by last year’s BCS championship, which boasted a 17.8 rating.

Virginia recruiting

With Mike London and his staff landing a second consecutive Top 25 recruiting class, the Cavaliers are building the football program the right way.

Another solid class will add the kind of size, speed and strength London needs to keep the program moving and to help create the often most overlooked criteria by fans: depth.

Here is how two of the major recruiting services rank the ACC incoming classes that will sign in February (note this rankings may shift with additions/subtractions in the coming weeks):

Rivals.com has the ACC currently ranked like this in terms of national rankings: 6. Miami; 9. Florida State; 12. Clemson; 20. Virginia Tech; 23. Virginia; 45. Maryland; 46. N.C. State.

No other ACC teams appeared in Rivals’ top 50, including North Carolina. Future ACC team, Pittsburgh, is ranked No. 31. The top five, in case you’re interested, is: 1. Alabama; 2. Texas; 3. Florida; 4. Michigan; 5. LSU. Yes, the rich get richer.

Another service is a little kinder to Virginia. MaxPreps, in cahoots with CBS College Sports and Tom Lemming ranks the ACC this way nationally: 7. Miami; 10. FSU; 12. Clemson; 14. Virginia Tech; 19. Virginia.

Only 25 teams were ranked by this service at this point and its top five nationally are: 1. ‘Bama; 2. Texas; 3. Michigan; 4. Florida; 5. Ohio State.

The Sports Reporters

I’ve had several folks asking about when they can catch the next weekly radio show featuring yours truly and Doug Doughty of the Roanoke Times with host Jay James, so here you go.

Starting last Wednesday, our show, which has been expanded by popular demand from 30 minutes to an hour, can be found on two stations every Wednesday from 6:05 p.m. to 7 p.m. The Sports Reporters’ hour is available on WINA AM-1070 and ESPN WVAX AM-1450.

Caution: it’s no place for the weak at heart or easily offended.

Free throws …

…When UVa travels to Duke on Thursday night, the Cavaliers will get their first look at one of the league’s best freshmen, the Blue Devils’ Austin Rivers, who leads all ACC freshmen in scoring (14.7 ppg). …Mike Scott, Assane Sene and Akil Mitchell will have their hands full of the Brothers Plumlee. Miles and Mason have combined to average 19 points and 16 rebounds per game. The other brother, Mason, is being redshirted.