Tony Bennett, Virginia Men's Basketball Coach
Sports Spectrum Podcast
Sports Spectrum
4.9 • 685 Ratings
🗓️ 31 October 2018
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Episode 180
Tony Bennett has been the men's basketball coach at the University of Virginia since 2009. He's led the Cavaliers to 3 ACC regular season titles, and 2 ACC conference titles. In 2018, Virginia was the number one overall seed in the NCAA Tournament after finishing with a 31-3 record. For his accomplishments, Bennett was named the NABC Coach of the Year, the Naismith Coach of the Year and the AP National Coach of the Year.
After playing his college basketball at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay under his father Dick Bennett, Tony was selected in the second round of the 1992 NBA Draft by the Charlotte Hornets. He would go on to a 4-year NBA stint from 1992-95 before a foot injury would end his career.
Prior to Virginia, Bennett was the head coach at Washington State, where he brought that program to the national spotlight by winning 26 game in back-to-back seasons in 2006-07 and 2007-08.
On this episode of the podcast, we talk to Coach Bennett about becoming the first No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 16 seed in the NCAA Tournament, how he was able to face that adversity with humility and grace, where his faith journey in Christ began, why beginning his day in the Lord is a discipline that he instilled into his life and how he lives his faith out everyday as a prominent coach, and the Bible verse that he is clinging to right now.
For more, log on to http://SportsSpectrum.com
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Sports Spectrum, the Sports and Faith podcast that brings Jesus back into the conversation. |
| 0:17.5 | Here's your host, Jason Romano. |
| 0:20.1 | This episode of the Sports Spectrum podcast with Virginia men's basketball coach Tony Bennett |
| 0:25.8 | is sponsored by Compassion International. |
| 0:28.5 | Go to compassion.com slash sports spectrum. |
| 0:31.6 | For $38, you can make a difference in a child's life, releasing them from poverty, providing them with something |
| 0:39.2 | they simply need, which is hope. And you can do that through Compassion International. Go to |
| 0:43.9 | compassion.com slash sports spectrum, $38 a month, change a child's life and sponsor a child today. |
| 0:52.4 | Today's guest on the podcast, Virginia men's basketball coach |
| 0:55.9 | Tony Bennett joins us here on the show, three-time ACC coach of the year. And last season |
| 1:01.8 | was the 2018 NABC coach of the year, which is great. And his team was really good during the |
| 1:08.4 | season and came in as a number one seed in the NCAA tournament. |
| 1:12.8 | And then, unfortunately, they were the first number one seed to ever lose to a 16 seed in losing to |
| 1:18.7 | UMBC in the first round of last year's March Madness tournament. |
| 1:22.8 | But this podcast, I wanted to talk a little bit about that. |
| 1:26.6 | I didn't want to spend a ton of time on it. And I really |
| 1:28.6 | wanted to ask him more about adversity and overcoming adversity and kind of character shaping that |
| 1:35.5 | adversity can often do for many of us. It can either make us or break us. And if you remember, |
| 1:41.3 | Coach Bennett had this awesome interview with CBS right after the loss to UMBC. |
| 1:47.5 | And he was just so positive and just so encouraging and so humbled, I think, in that moment where he could have just gotten angry and lashed out. |
| 1:57.1 | And instead, he took what I think was probably a very difficult time, difficult moment for him |
| 2:03.5 | and made it into a positive. And so we talk about facing adversity and what that's like. We also |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Sports Spectrum, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Sports Spectrum and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.