Virginia traveled to Winston Salem on Saturday for another one of these. On the road. Wake Forest fattening its lead, revving up the crowd, growing a cleft into a chasm. Virginia needed something. Anything. A spark, to ignite a lump of damp wood, or perhaps a paintbrush, to infuse a graying team with color.
After the final buzzer—after the demolition ended, but before the debris cleared—Wake Forest’s Cam Hildreth scooped up the ball, headed toward the basket, seemingly primed for a celebratory dunk. For an exclamation point, or three. A couple feet short, he stopped. Just stood there, holding the ball, then turning to celebrate with his teammates.
Wake Forest needed no punctuation.
These days, Tony Bennett enters his postgame press conference after another familiar blowout loss, faces the assembled media, and doesn’t even look disappointed. Or sad. Or mad. Or anything, really. On Saturday, in response to the first question, he even made a joke, smiled, laughed about it, as if eating holiday dinner.
Bennett seems to almost expect defeat. He seems to understand this as a rebuild, a process. Has he surrendered the season? Certainly not. He wants to win, because of course he does.
But Tony Bennett is a wise man, a discerning coach, one who never seemed particularly satisfied in November or December. He now seems somewhat resigned.
On Saturday, smothering Virginia defense served as an early anchor, keeping the Cavaliers tethered, preventing them from floating away. Midway through the half, Virginia raised its patchy sail and started moving.
Then the mast splintered, and the sail collapsed. The anchor cable snapped. Virginia drifted away, out of the game and out of any reasonable definition of relevance.
Here came Efton Reid, the powerful Demon Deacon big, early in the second half. Top of the key. Lead stretching deeper and wider and darker. He caught the ball, and he shot. He made it, for his second three of the year. The crowd laughed in delight, turning to guffaw at each other.
A big man drilling a three as the crowd laughs in delight? The stuff of early-season non-conference games, of so-called “buy” or “guarantee” games. To do it against a conference opponent? Downright insulting.
Bennett postgame delivered a veritable monologue, riddled with wisdom many might cut out and frame and hang above a door, or on a wall. It sounded great. You can find it plastered all over social media. It served as a reminder of how incredible Bennett is, as a coach and as a person.
He delivered, in that answer, something interesting. Not hope. Not exactly. Something new, something entirely different, something rooted in nearly two decades of coaching. Reality. This is who we are. This is how we’ll do it. We’ll either get there, or we won’t. A simple equation, really.
The NCAA Tournament seems, at this point, a distant proposition. Bennett avoids thinking about the postseason, at least publicly. He is focused on today, hoping today will help tomorrow, and tomorrow will help tomorrow’s tomorrow and the tomorrow after that, and after that, and after that.
But Virginia’s burdensome problems snake deep underground. Chopping the surface shoots, making little adjustments, does little. Analyzing the minutia is academic. Tugging at the roots? Maybe. Eventually.
Virginia traveled to Winston Salem on Saturday for another one of these. On the road. Lagging.
The feeling has become familiar.