UPDATED: Feb. 1, 2018 at 2:57 p.m.

Tony Bennett walked his team to midcourt of the Kohl Center in Madison, Wisconsin. It was the night before his Virginia Cavaliers were set to take on the Badgers in November 2012.

As a former assistant to his father, Dick, on the 2000 Wisconsin men’s Final Four team, Bennett knew the arena all too well. With UVA slated as underdogs, Bennett decided to tell his team a story. Beneath the Kohl Center hardwood floor that the players stood on were the names of the players of the 2000 team, etched into the concrete beneath the floorboards of the gym.

“This gym was built on the foundation of the pack line defense,” Bennett said to his team. “And we’re coming here to show them that.”

The empty arena, soon to be packed with thousands of fans, suddenly didn’t feel so empty. The ensuing night, in front of a hostile Badger crowd, the Cavaliers defeated Wisconsin 60-54. Using the pack line defense, UVA held the Badgers to just 38 percent shooting.

Now ranked No. 2 in the nation, the Cavaliers (21-1, 10-0 Atlantic Coast) travel to the Carrier Dome on Saturday afternoon looking to continue their 10-game unbeaten run in conference play when they take on middle-of-the-pack Syracuse (15-7, 4-5). The defense, along with Bennett’s five pillars, has propelled Virginia from a middling ACC team to a consistent conference powerhouse and national championship contender.

The five pillars — humility, passion, unity, thankfulness and servanthood — have established the culture at UVA for nearly a decade. Like the pack line defense, Bennett learned the pillars from his father. Now, those pillars are posted in the Virginia locker room.

“(Dick Bennett) told Coach Bennett that if you’re going to use them, you have live by them,” said Jontel Evans, a former player for Bennett and the Cavaliers from 2009-13. “It just becomes a part of you, it means so much more than just words.”

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From the moment Bennett walked on campus, he made his vision clear to everyone. Before the team held any official practices, he hosted a seminar with his father for the players. Together, the two spent an entire week teaching his first ever recruiting class the pack line defense.

“For an hour or two every day that week, it was like a college class about the pack line,” said Thomas Rogers, who played for Bennett from 2010-14. “He doesn’t have to teach that anymore; the upperclassmen teach it to the younger guys.”

The defense is built on packing the foul line and limiting dribble penetration. One player will pressure the ball handler, while the other four defenders pack the paint. This often limits opposing teams to just one shot per possession, and a difficult, contested one at that.

Before Bennett and his defensive style arrived at Virginia, the Cavaliers were not regarded as a winning program. In the four seasons prior to Bennett’s arrival in Charlottesville, Virginia, UVA had a 64-61 overall record, and went 26-37 in the ACC with just one NCAA Tournament appearance. Since his arrival, it has been a complete reversal.

Now in his ninth year in charge, Virginia is 21-1. The Cavaliers are 209-87 overall and 98-50 in conference under Bennett. They have two regular season conference titles and have made the NCAA tournament five of the last six seasons, coming within minutes of the Final Four in 2016 before a furious Syracuse comeback knocked out the Cavaliers.

“The brand of Virginia basketball is established,” Rogers said. “When I first got there, nothing was established.”

Today, Virginia is the vision Bennett had for the team nine years ago. No team in Division I has fewer possessions per game than the Cavaliers. The pack line defense has held then-No. 12 North Carolina to 49 points and Clemson to 36.

“It’s something we practice every single day,” redshirt senior Devon Hall said. “It becomes a habit, it’s something we go over every single day because we want to perfect it.”

Bennett may not get the same class of recruits as Duke or UNC, yet the Cavaliers have now beaten the Tar Heels five times in five seasons. On Saturday, the Cavaliers won at Cameron Indoor Stadium for the first time since 1995.

Offensively, UVA turns the ball over just 9.2 times per game, which is tied for the best in the nation. Virginia’s brand of play is not always the most exciting, but it is brutally effective.

On his first day of practice as head coach, Bennett sent a message to his incoming and current players. Evans said many older players thought they could do “whatever they wanted” with a new, young coach coming to the program.

“The first day of practice he told us ‘whoever isn’t in, there’s the door,’” Evans said. “He said he’s in this for the long haul.”

Evans and the rest of Bennett’s first recruiting class bought into the program. The results were murky for the first two seasons as players from the previous staff left and Bennett brought in the players he wanted. By the third season, Virginia made an NCAA tournament appearance. And in Evans’ final game at John Paul Jones Arena, UVA stormed back from 17 points down to beat Maryland by three in overtime.

After the game, Evans broke down in tears. While he was headed toward the tunnel, Evans was pulled back by Bennett, who embraced him.

“He gave me a big hug, and I let the tears flow,” Evans said. “It was the last time I would ever play on that court for him.”

When Rogers was in Charlottesville last August, Bennett invited him to dinner. Bennett showed Rogers a scroll, which listed UVA’s five pillars that have set the foundation of the program.

As a way of remembering all of the people that have made UVA’s success possible, Bennett printed all of the names of players, coaches and managers onto that scroll. It serves as a reminder of everyone who has been a part of the program.

Like the names under the floor of the Kohl Center, this scroll represents Virginia’s commitment to a culture that has defined its program for years.

“We’ve done it differently, but it’s been really effective because we have the right kind of players,” Hall said. “And the right coach.”

CORRECTION: In a previous version of this post, Syracuse and Virginia’s records were misstated. As of Jan. 31, Syracuse is 15-7, 4-5 Atlantic Coast, and Virginia is 21-1, 10-0. The Daily Orange regrets this error.

CORRECTION: In a previous version of this post, the length of Virginia’s win streak was misstated. The Cavaliers have won 10-straight games as of Jan. 31. The Daily Orange regrets this error.

Published on January 31, 2018 at 11:05 pm

Contact Anthony: [email protected] | @AnthonyDabbundo