The college basketball world got some shocking news on Thursday when reports broke that University of Virginia head coach Tony Bennett would announce his retirement on Friday morning.
The news was first broken by Jeff Goodman, co-founder of The Field of 68. Goodman has a long history of breaking big college basketball news, an impressive feat considering he’s spent the last year working exclusively for his podcast network rather than a big national outlet as he has in the past. Most notably, Goodman broke the news of former Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski’s retirement in 2021 while working for Stadium.
BREAKING: Virginia head coach Tony Bennett is retiring, source told @TheFieldOf68.
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) October 17, 2024
While Goodman was the one that broke the news on Thursday, ESPN college basketball insider Jeff Borzello later shared an interesting anecdote from a conversation he had with Bennett last week that shows his retirement may not be as surprising as it seems.
I asked Tony Bennett literally last week why so many people thought he could be the next Jay Wright and suddenly retire out of nowhere.
His response, verbatim: “I gotta call Jay Wright and see what he says, right? I always have said, when you’re doing this, you’re in this…
— Jeff Borzello (@jeffborzello) October 17, 2024
Here’s a transcript of Borzello’s social media post on Thursday:
I asked Tony Bennett literally last week why so many people thought he could be the next Jay Wright and suddenly retire out of nowhere.
His response, verbatim: “I gotta call Jay Wright and see what he says, right? I always have said, when you’re doing this, you’re in this profession, whether you agree how it’s going or not, you have to be true to yourself and really look at it and say, who am I? Can I operate how I want and can it be successful enough? And you get to choose if you wanna be a part of it or not. And when you feel it’s time, like Jay did, like Coach K, maybe Saban, it’s their choice. And you can sit here and complain and gripe. Or you have a decision to make. Either you try to do it in your way or you get to make that decision. So I think Jay Wright probably foresaw the where this is going … It’ll be better whenever there’s regulations. Is that three to five years away? Who knows? But if it’s not — those are decisions that every man has to make when it’s his time.”
That’s a very interesting statement from a man that was still employed as a head basketball coach a week ago. And while Jay Wright’s retirement did send shockwaves through college basketball when Shams Charania broke that story two years ago, it also happened in April, months before the college basketball season began. Bennett is retiring just over two weeks before the season starts.
If there are to be parallels between the two’s retirements, perhaps it will come on the media front. After his retirement, Jay Wright went on to become a studio analyst for CBS coverage of college basketball. If Bennett’s reasons for stepping away relate to the shifting landscape within the sport regarding NIL and the transfer portal, as Borzello’s report would insinuate, a jump to media would make sense.
At 55, Bennett still has a lot to offer the sport. And if he chose to go the media route, he’d shoot straight to the top of every network’s college basketball wish list.
[X/@GoodmanHoops, @jeffborzello]
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.