RALEIGH, N.C. — Tony Bennett walked across the court shortly after Virginia's victory against Butler and, looking toward a group of Cavaliers fans, issued a humble shrug.
Bennett’s top-seeded team had survived, at least for two rounds of the NCAA tournament, and that’s more than last year’s group could say. And the reason wasn’t confusing or mysterious; it warranted no shrug.
Virginia survived the determined Bulldogs because Bennett made adjustments — the kinds he was either unable or unwilling to make in the past, notably in early-round losses the past two years, both times to Michigan State.
"This year," Cavaliers forward Anthony Gill said after his team's 77-69 win, "we knew what we were getting ourselves into."
Perhaps, but Butler still caught Virginia by surprise, playing the same sort of physical and slow-paced contest Spartans Coach Tom Izzo used against Bennett in those previous two tournaments. The Bulldogs got in the Cavaliers’ faces, refusing to be intimidated by a clearly more talented team, and played the first half on their terms. They led at halftime, 25-23, and Bennett’s team looked dazed — the same expression players wore after Izzo had outfoxed the Cavaliers’ coach during those recent March disappointments.
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There’s good and bad news now for Virginia. The bad is that there is seemingly a formula on how to attack the Cavaliers: Play slowly, methodically, the kind of game that Bennett’s team hates — the kind of game it often loses. The upside, though, is that Virginia and its coach seem to be acknowledging that weakness and, at least recently, the team has been able to survive.
Early this month, Clemson went after Virginia, leading the Cavaliers in the second half until Bennett moved to a four-guard lineup and, in some ways in spite of himself and the disciplined program he has built, moved out of the way and let his superior players win a game for him.
On Saturday night, the Cavaliers shot 38.5 percent in the first half, and Butler forward Andrew Chrabascz torched Virginia for 25 points, including 11 in the first three minutes of the second half.
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Bennett considered shifting guard Malcolm Brogdon, the Atlantic Coast Conference’s defensive player of the year, to Chrabascz. Brogdon himself then lobbied for the move, and Bennett went for it.
Chrabascz, with Brogdon trailing him, didn’t have another field goal in the final 15 minutes. “He made adjustments,” Brogdon said of his coach, going on to say that Bennett and the Cavaliers have learned from last year.
Butler Coach Chris Holtmann wouldn’t say Saturday night if he used Michigan State’s success as a blueprint for his game plan against U-Va., saying only that he “certainly was aware” of the Cavaliers’ losses to Izzo, but the Spartans’ fingerprints were all over it. The same was true three weeks ago in a near miss against Clemson.
But again Saturday, Bennett diagnosed the reasons his team was being beaten and made the necessary changes. He moved back to the four-guard offense and allowed his talented team to display its gifts — and, more important, to win with them. At one point Brogdon, who had spent much of the first half angling for ideal looks and routes to the basket, raced past Bulldogs guard Roosevelt Jones for an easy layup. On the next possession, Brogdon did it again.
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In other words, the faster and more physically dominant team broke from Bennett’s preferred box and used its speed and strength to overwhelm an opponent susceptible to such things.
“They must’ve made that an impact at halftime, to drive us and get to the lane,” Jones said afterward.
After that putrid first-half shooting performance, the Cavaliers made 73.1 percent of their shots from the floor after halftime.
“We tried to free their minds,” Bennett said. “... Of course you have to make decisions, but I said I’m going to ride these guys.”
“We played a really tough team tonight,” Brogdon said, “but we were really tough.”
Bennett is one of the finest coaches in the ACC and, though he’s still relatively young at 46, perhaps one of the best in the nation. He has made U-Va. a national force, an on-paper favorite to reach the Final Four (especially with Michigan State out of the way in the Midwest Region) and a year-in, year-out contender because he emphasizes discipline and, even in the face of a ferocious storm, calmness. It’s just that, during the NCAA tournament, the most unpredictable three-week stretch on the sports calendar, the script often calls for improvisation and change.
Until this season, Bennett has shown an unwillingness to deviate. That’s changed.
Now two victories from Bennett’s first Final Four appearance, the Cavaliers are a far more dangerous team because of it.
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