What must the UVA men’s basketball program do to get back to championship contention

The Virginia Cavaliers were bounced out of the tournament early after a last-four matchup against Colorado State on Tuesday night. Virginia entered Tuesday’s game with the 9th-ranked defense in the country and a subpar offense, but with the championship experience of head coach Tony Bennett, many people believed UVA had the better team. On Tuesday, Virginia offensive inefficiencies showed up at the worst time, as they only scored a dreadful 14 points in the first half. Colorado State pretty much never looked back, and they went on to win the ball game by more than 20 points.

The tournament loss most definitely has some fans and alumni questioning if Coach Bennett is still the right man for the job, but he has two top 100 recruits coming in next season to help his team out, especially on offense. The two recruits are Jacob Cofie and Ishan Sharma. Cofie stands 6 feet 10 inches and weighs a solid 230 pounds, and Sharma is a 6-foot-5 guard who is arguably the best shooter in this class. Although these two recruits will definitely help this team, they will need to be searching for an influx of talent in the transfer portal.

One of the main concerns for the University of Virginia is recruiting the top talent in their own area, as the top guys out of Powerhouse High School, DeMatha, in Prince George’s County, Maryland, all chose other schools. In order for any coach to dominate the recruiting process, they must snag at least one of their local top-ranking prospects. Virginia isn’t a totally bad team; they have an amazing defense, thanks in large part to the invention of Coach Bennett’s pack defense, which stops a lot of teams from shooting a ton of three-pointers. With the signing of forward/center Jacob Cofie, they will have a much stronger post presence, as he averaged over 20 points and 11 rebounds last season in high school. Let’s see if the staff of Virginia comes up with a plan to rejuvenate the program and get back to their winning ways.