WHOA - Virginia Head Coach Tony Bennett Announced He's Retiring. Today. 20 Days Before The Season Starts.

There are very few times I'm left shocked when it comes to college basketball. Seen it all at this point in our lives. We've seen the 16 over a 1, we've seen coaches leave for weird jobs, players transfer, whatever it might be. But this? A guy who won a title 5 years ago retiring less than 3 weeks before the season starts is fucking insane. Only other guy I can think of doing this was Dean Smith and that was almost 30 years ago. It's not like you do this with a true plan in place. Virginia will *likely* elevate one of their coaches (probably who Bennett wants) and give him at least a year to figure it out. Then you either decide to keep them (see Diebler at Ohio State) or go try to hire a former guy like Ritchie McKay. 

Now, look, Virginia has been disgusting to watch the last couple of years. Not exactly breaking news there. Their offense is slow and the last couple of years it's been bad. It was different than when they were top seeds and a won a title. Still slow, sure, but actually good. Helps when you have NBA guys in the offense. But that's still not a good enough reason to retire this close to the season. 

If it's about NIL like this could be implying, it still doesn't make sense to retire 3 weeks before the season: 

It will lead to annoying NIL talk and how coaches are leaving, but let's not act like Tony Bennett retiring will kill the sport. It's a weird situation, it's shocking, but it's not going to stop people from watching. And again, even if it's an NIL thing, why retire 3 weeks before the season? You can retire in March, probably early March, if you really wanted to. 

We'll probably find out more tonight or tomorrow during the press conference. But for now, all we know is Virginia lost a future Hall of Fame coach less than 3 weeks before the season.