In the blink of an eye, Virginia men’s basketball faces a seemingly impossible task — replacing Tony Bennett. It is a daunting job, but Bennett, who announced his retirement last week, leaves the team in the trusted hands of Ron Sanchez, previously the associate head coach and now Bennett’s interim replacement. Sanchez has previous Division I head coaching experience and a good track record of recruiting, tools that will help as he replaces a coach who is the furthest thing from replaceable.
Sanchez was born in the Dominican Republic and grew up in the South Bronx, where he says basketball acted as a “positive addiction” in a difficult environment. He played collegiately at SUNY Oneonta, and while in graduate school at Indiana, he started his coaching career as a volunteer assistant with the Hoosiers and was involved in their 2002 Final Four run.
After graduating from Indiana, Sanchez entered the Bennett coaching tree at Washington State, where he served as director of operations under Dick Bennett, the Cougars’ head coach and Tony Bennett’s father. Following Tony’s ascension to the head coaching position in 2006, Sanchez was elevated to assistant coach, where he remained until he followed Bennett to Charlottesville three years later.
Sanchez has since coached with the Cavaliers for 11 seasons, though not consecutively. His time on the staff, which stretched from 2009 until 2018 and resumed in 2023, coincided with much of Virginia’s success under Bennett. During Sanchez’s five-year absence, he held the head coaching role at Charlotte.
When Sanchez took over the 49ers, they were a struggling program. Charlotte was coming off a 6-23 campaign in 2017-18 and had not produced a winning season in four years. Despite the challenges inherent to such a job, Sanchez quickly righted the ship, guiding the 49ers to three winning seasons in his five years at the helm.
Under Sanchez’s guidance, Charlotte won its first postseason title, the 2023 College Basketball Invitational, and achieved a 22-14 record in his final season. However limited, his stint as a head coach was an unqualified success.
Sanchez emphasized in his first press conference as interim head coach Wednesday that his time in Charlotte is already paying dividends in his new position.
“I’m using those experiences right now,” Sanchez said. “Having to galvanize energy every day, having to take young men that are in a transition space and try to unite them to pursue a specific goal. Every single year that I was at Charlotte, I learned something new that I will most certainly use during my time here.”
Though he learned a lot while away from Bennett, Sanchez does not plan on overhauling the program. He said that the coaching staff was already working on some changes for next season before Friday’s announcement, and that he intends to implement those while keeping much else the same.
“This institution is still here,” Sanchez said. “The leadership may have changed, but the program and the culture here will not.”
Sanchez’s coaching style matches well with Bennett’s based on available statistics. The 2022-23 49ers ranked 10th out of 11 Conference USA teams in both points per game and pace of play, which measures a team’s average number of offensive possessions per 40 minutes. Virginia, which always played via a methodical pace under Bennett, ranked dead last in the ACC in both categories last season.
Also similar to the Cavaliers, Charlotte sported a robust defense while Sanchez was in town — the team allowed just 62.6 points per game in 2022-23, which put them second in the conference. That defensive strength was good enough to give the 49ers the fourth-best average point differential in the C-USA despite a lackluster offense — a familiar dynamic for Virginia fans.
Additionally, Sanchez has a knack for recruiting that Bennett himself recognized in 2023. In each of his final three years with the 49ers, Sanchez signed the top recruiting class in Conference USA. Charlotte’s CBI title in 2022-23 was the only season of his tenure that the team was made up entirely of his recruits.
Per NCAA rules, a 30-day transfer portal opened for Virginia players the day after Bennett’s exit. But no Cavaliers have entered the portal since, and it is worth noting that Sanchez played a key role in bringing in several of Virginia’s current players. In his first address to the players as head coach, he emphasized that they were recruited for the program and not just for Bennett.
“I wanted to tell them that they were loved, that Tony’s departure doesn’t remove that level of appreciation for them as student-athletes here,” Sanchez said.
As Virginia turns the page on Bennett, it is an understatement to say that Sanchez has big shoes to fill. The good news is that he was in Charlottesville for two ACC Tournament titles and three No. 1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament. Perhaps he can usher in a new era of success, continuing a legacy that began almost 20 years ago at Washington State.
As the interim head coach, Sanchez will take the wheel for the 2024-25 season — then, per Athletic Director Carla Williams, the search for a new head coach begins. Sanchez, however, brushed off the insecurity attached to the interim label.
“I’m here to serve this institution,” Sanchez said, “For however long it is.”
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