Isaac McNealy ‘excited’ to play for Ron Sanchez

Tony Bennett’s retirement has created an endless number of storylines to follow in 2024-25. Virginia men’s basketball the season is unfolding. Is this really an audition for longtime assistant and current interim head coach Ron Sanchez to land a full-time head coaching job at UVA? How successful does this season have to be for this to happen? Will the players who came to Virginia primarily to play for Tony Bennett accept Sanchez’s coaching style? Besides Jalen Worley, who entered the transfer portal As of last week, the rest of the roster is expected to remain unchanged this season, but who would consider leaving the program next spring depending on how this season goes? How different will UVA basketball look under Sanchez?

On Monday, we finally got the chance to talk to the players to get their reaction to Tony Bennett’s departure, how they feel about the move to Ron Sanchez as head coach, and their overall thoughts on the upcoming season. One of the team’s leaders, Isaac McKneely, did not shy away from expressing disappointment that he would no longer play for Tony Bennett, but he also said that he and the rest of the team were “excited” to play for him. Ron Sanchez.

At Monday’s media day, we asked McNeely a few questions about Bennett, Sanchez and the upcoming season. Here are his answers:

On how Tony Bennett remains involved in the program after retirement:

“He said he’ll be around as long as the coaches allow him, which in my opinion should be all the time. I’m very glad he’s around. He says now that he’s not the head coach because he won’t yell at us anymore. But yeah, I’m really glad he’s around, such a good resource, such a good person, so I’m very grateful for that.”

On his first reaction to Tony Bennett’s departure:

“Of course, mixed emotions. Shock, just emotional in general. Because, you know, I wanted to play for Coach Bennett. He’s the one we all wanted to play as. But he’ll still be around, so we’re very happy about that. We trust Coach Bennett. When he says he wants the best for us, he means it. So, we trust his decisions and we’ll just stick together and look at it positively because that’s what it is. whatever you can do.”

On Virginia basketball still being Virginia basketball under Ron Sanchez:

“Nothing has changed in what we do offensively and defensively. The culture hasn’t changed. Coach Sanchez was a head coach before, so he has that experience. We trust him and I know we’re all really excited to play for him. He’s similar to Coach Bennett in some ways, but he’s different in others. So I think it’s something special and we’re all really excited to play for Coach Sanchez.”

On his role in organizing player meetings after Tony Bennett left:

“It was me and Thane (Murray) who had the idea to do it. You know, we are the two “leaders” on this team, the two most experienced guys. So, we thought it would be good for us to just get together and say something that can be said outside of basketball, just as human beings. And I think those meetings were really special, I think it just brought us closer in difficult times. time.”

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