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It’s easy to forget what it was like just a couple of years ago.

When Pete Gillen was fired as the head coach at Virginia following the 2004-05 season, UVA had posted 93 losses in seven years, including losing at least 12 games in six of the previous seven years. Then Dave Leitao was hired, and things didn’t get much better. Leitao went 63-60 in his four years on campus, and outside of tying for an ACC title in 2006-07, the Cavs didn’t do much under his watch.

Enter Tony Bennett in 2009. Bennett was coming off a decent run at Washington State that included two trips to the NCAA Tournament and a Sweet 16 berth, in just three years on the job. Bennett was young and enthusiastic. He certainly looked the part of a successful college coach.

It didn’t go that way during his early time with the Cavs. He was an even .500 – 31-31 – after his first two seasons at UVA, but he followed that up with back-to-back 20-win years and a trip back to the NCAA Tourney in 2012. Virginia landed on the bubble in 2013, and that bubble popped, sending UVA to the NIT.

But Bennett wasn’t about to give up, and the Virginia administration wasn’t going to give up on him. They liked what he was bringing to the floor, liked the kind of players he was recruiting. They were guys who fit his system, guys who took defense to heart and didn’t focus on what they needed to do to get to the NBA.

Bennett managed to convince his players that if they simply did what he asked, the Cavaliers would win, and the NBA would notice. And even if players weren’t good enough to play in the pros, well, at least they enjoyed winning a lot of games.

Here’s the thing. The plan worked.

Over the past three years, Bennett and his Cavaliers have enjoyed the best run of UVA basketball since the heady days of Ralph Sampson more than 30 years ago. Back-to-back 30-win seasons. Back-to-back ACC championships for the first time in school history. The program’s first No. 1 seeding in the NCAA Tournament since the early 1980s.

Bennett has done it with only one player—guard Justin Anderson—leaving early for the NBA. The guys who have really driven the Cavs over the past couple of years, such as guards Joe Harris, Malcolm Brogdon, London Perrantes, and forwards Akil Mitchell, Darion Atkins and Anthony Gill, have been players who have bought in and done their time. Harris, Mitchell and Atkins ran out of eligibility, but they passed on the passion and principles of the program to their teammates, and Virginia continues to roll without them.

Brogdon has been the stud this year, an 18-point-a-night scorer who can take over games and can’t be slowed down. Just once this year has Brogdon gone without scoring in double digits, and that was during UVA’s 86-48 laugher vs. Morgan State when he scored five points and only played 21 minutes. Against Miami (Fla.) Feb. 22, Brogdon scored nearly half of UVA’s points, putting up 28 in a 64-61 loss to the Hurricanes.

That game has served as a bit of a red flag for Virginia’s critics to wave. UVA has lost two of three, and those critics think Bennett’s guys peaked too early. The fact that Brogdon was the only double-digit scorer vs. the ‘Canes is a sign Virginia lacks the balance to go far in March, they say.

Never mind that those two losses—the only ones since mid-January, mind you—came vs. a surging Duke team (hardly a pushover any year) and Miami (which has hovered in the top 10 all season). Never mind that UVA easily handled the likes of Villanova and West Virginia and that same Miami team earlier this year.

Forget what the critics say. Virginia has the experience and the talent to go deep into March. Defense wins championships, and Bennett has always prided his team on its ability to string together stops.

Virginia has some work to do to have a shot at three-peating in the ACC, and it will need some help from its league opponents to bring UNC back to the pack. But first, it gets its own shot at North Carolina Saturday night at home in its only meeting with the Tar Heels this season. Beat UNC, and suddenly UVA is a game back with two to play.

And the last week of the season is always exciting.

Bennett has built his program on poise and not panic, pride and not style. UVA has a lot of basketball left to play this year, and the good times for the program are going to stay around for a while.

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