One-on-one with Tony Bennett (Part 3): Pack-Line and Recruiting

Twice Tony Bennett earned the Naismith College Coach of the Year. Twice he earned the AP National Coach of the Year. He is a four-time ACC Coach of the Year and the 2007 winner of the PAC-10 Coach of the Year.

Virginia head coach Tony Bennett also holds the NCAA record for career three-point field goal percentage. The No. 35 pick in the 1992 NBA Draft shot a staggering 49.7 percent on 584 career attempts.

Between stops at Washington State and Virginia, Bennett has had 11 players drafted into the NBA. For the 2021-22 NBA Season, Virginia had eight players on opening day rosters, tied for 12th among all college programs.

As a head coach, Bennett has led four teams to Sweet 16s, two to Elite 8s, one to a Final Four, and won one NCAA Championship. He has won 385 career games as a head coach and carries a .720 win percentage.

His resume is long, but I felt like I needed to brush over it. What he has accomplished as both a player and a coach place Tony Bennett among the elite in what he does.

I made the trip to Charlottesville, Virginia, last week to spend the majority of the PM hours with the program. Part of that time was a 30-minute in-depth conversation with Tony Bennett. With the length of this conversation and the detail Bennett provided, I broke it down into multiple parts.

Read Part 1 of One-on-one with Tony Bennett
Read Part 2 of One-on-one with Tony Bennett: Embrace the Pace

Here is part three of my exclusive One-on-one with Tony Bennett.

Well, I want to kind of lean into your style of play a little bit. The pack line. You’ve made it famous. There are tutorials online, and people picking it up and teaching it…What was the genesis of the pack line, or how did you, how did it come about?

My father ran a pressured defensive system. He did this famous tape, and people like Pat Riley and Bob Hurley, Sr. all wrote books, and they credited his tape. So my dad had this video where it was a pressure defensive system. Everything on that tape was kind of what you’re seeing the Baylors, and the Texas Techs somewhat do.

When we were at Green Bay, we had little small guards with myself and a guy named John Martinez. We didn’t have a lot of depth, and we didn’t want to get into foul trouble. So he sort of changed the system and jammed the lane – he hence packed the lane – and the system of where it came from.

But the reason he called it the pack line defense is because he was the coach at Green Bay and the Packers, at the time, the Green Bay Packers actually said, ‘We’re gonna play this pack line defense,’ but it had the word picture of Pack. A lot of people don’t know that.

So it had to do with the Green Bay Packers and also, you know, gap – jam – pack. Again, you can run any defense, and if you teach it well and emphasize things, it’s gonna be good. And every defense has its flaws, but it’s probably more famous from what my dad did. I mean, obviously, we’ve won, and we’ve had some good defensive teams and defensive players, but that’s kind of how it started. So that’s pretty cool.

We spoke about it for a little bit before we got going, but recruiting. The recruiting landscape has changed so much. I’m not sure what you’re recruiting process was like as a player; I know you were probably a lock to go play for your father, but from the time you went through the recruiting process to now, what are the biggest changes that you’ve seen in how the process is handled?

I think things can be promised, guaranteed, and inflated when selling to young men. And it’s important to sell what hope can be and what can happen. But there’s a reality, and there’s a process that you cannot shortcut. So few people are willing to speak the truth about that. I mean, it all comes out in the wash in the end.

And again, the things that are put in the minds of some of these young student-athletes who have bright futures, but there are so many untruths, so many exaggerations, and it’s just not going to be like that.

Sometimes, you only learn through hindsight. But that’s what has changed. It used to be like, ‘Hey, it’s going to be hard, and nothing’s guaranteed. You’re gonna get what you earn, and yes, there’s an opportunity.’

And it doesn’t matter what a coach says; he can promise the world if you’re not good enough, you’re not playing. And I can say nothing and tell them I don’t play first-years or freshmen. But, at the end of the day, if you’re good enough, you’re gonna play a ton. So it all comes out in the wash.

You know, everybody wants a guarantee. Everybody wants to hear what’s promised; I mean, you have to recruit and play the game and sell the right stuff. But I just feel like that’s what has changed.

Of course, we can talk about NIL and the transfer portal, all that, but the stuff that is the negative recruiting, the stuff that’s exaggerated to recruits, has accelerated. And that stuff doesn’t usually end up playing out like it’s said, and that’s, that’s the hard thing.

I say those who have ears, let ’em here. Those who have eyes, let ’em see and base your decisions there. I wish young people would be more driven by facts and not what they hear but what they see, what has happened before. The easy thing is to just sell a dream and just kind of promise stuff, but the sound ones will think through that stuff. That’s what has changed the most, in my opinion. But again, maybe it’s always been like that to a certain extent, but I feel like it’s more exaggerated now.

Since you’ve been here, Virginia has grown into consistently being a prominent program in the country, a national brand year after year. Staying on the recruiting topic because you haven’t done it the way that a lot of people have. What is your main recruiting pitch to players, as you’re recruiting to come to play for the University of Virginia?

Yeah, I just try to be as honest as I can be. You can have it all here. We talk about that a lot. When I say all, I mean the academic opportunity, and that may matter more to some than others, and that’s okay. But there is that, and that will matter.

But I have them look at what has happened before.

You know, if I were a first-year head coach, I may sell something a little different, ‘this is what I think is going to happen, and here’s our vision,’ but this choice is an investment in your future. And you want to invest in something that is proven and where there’s a track record and where things have happened. And if it doesn’t have any of that, that’s your decision to make.

But if it has happened consistently, and if what you say is true, ‘I want to win.’ ‘I want to develop.’ ‘I want to academically get a network,’ ‘But I also want to have a chance to play professionally.’ Well, then, base your decision on facts and what you’ve seen happen. Yeah.

So I just try to sell what has happened with the guys we’ve had, from a team standpoint, from an individual standpoint. And, most importantly – I put it this way – say, if you get the people right, the rest takes care of itself. What I mean is, the people you’re gonna do life with; what’s the atmosphere like? What’s the environment like? And are they the right kind of people you’re gonna be doing this thing with?

The legacy speaks for itself.