Even as the band played, confetti swirled and his team celebrated, Tony Bennett didn’t quite grasp the magnitude of Virginia’s first ACC men’s basketball tournament championship in 38 years.
Then Bennett just happened to gaze back toward the Cavaliers’ bench. There, about 15 rows back in the Greensboro Coliseum seats, he noticed the coach of those 1976 champions, the first team in program history to reach the NCAA tournament.
Distinguished, understated and professorial as always, Terry Holland stood quietly, smiling broadly and processing this 2014 conference title, earned at the expense of Duke and his former rival Mike Krzyzewski. And that’s when it struck Bennett how profound the moment was to so many and how grateful he is to build upon Holland’s foundation.