Upon the hiring of Tony Bennett as Virginia’s basketball coach, many Virginia fans raced to their computers to find information on the former Associated Press National Coach of the Year they had just pulled from Pullman, Washington. Those searches almost certainly returned results describing Bennett as a “system” coach, and the terms “Pack-Line defense” and “Blocker/Mover offense,” all of which have been making their rounds amongst UVa fans since April. With limited information on either system available online, especially to the casual basketball fan, not to mention the lack of television coverage Washington State basketball experiences on the East Coast, it’s no wonder that many were left confused about just what these “systems” are and how they will be used at Virginia.

I will do my best to explain the defensive concept the Cavaliers will run exclusively under Bennett, the Pack-Line. Despite having a limited rotation, Bennett has played the Pack-Line on every defensive play in the first two games of this season, and I expect that trend to continue as long as he is the coach in Charlottesville. I will lay out the defensive concepts of the defense with regard to Post Defense, Man-to-Man Responsibilities, Off the Ball Pressure and Screens.

Before I begin explaining concepts, though, I want to give a little history on the Pack-Line and clear up some misinformation out there about it. The Pack-Line defense was invented by Dick Bennett, Tony Bennett’s father, during his Hall of Fame coaching career. The Pack-Line has had success in both the Big Ten under Dick Bennett and the Pac-10 under Tony Bennett, and is run in very few other programs. The Pack-Line is a sagging man-to-man defense, which is a set that many college basketball teams have in their arsenal – and many coaches choose to call this a Pack-Line set, as they use the same sagging point as Dick Bennett and they use a similar post-trap; both Notre Dame and Wake Forest are among many teams that run this style and have had solid success with it. Those schools use their “Pack-Line” as a set though, and not a system, which makes it markedly different than the system UVa will be running on every play under Bennett. The system that Dick Bennett runs is an absolute work of art for basketball junkies – its simplicity belies the precision with which it must be run in order to be successful at a high level. Even when run every day, this is a system that requires a tremendous adjustment from players and couldn’t possibly be offset by other styles of defense. So, in my opinion it is impossible to run a “Pack-Line set” – you either commit yourself to running the Pack-Line or you don’t.

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