After back-to-back ACC Regular Season Championships and the 2014 ACC Tournament title, the Virginia men’s basketball program has fully captured the hearts of Cavalier fans. Expectations are meteoric, season tickets are in high demand, and the countdown clock is monitored by the day not by the week.

The program has seen a steady climb in the win column. The Hoos have three NCAA Tournament appearances in the past four years and a 60-11 record over the past two seasons. An experienced roster is expected to add to those trends in 2014-2015 with seniors like Malcolm Brogdon, Anthony Gill, Mike Tobey, Evan Nolte, and Caid Kirven setting the tone.

With so much excitement surrounding the program, this offseason was a great time to sit down for my annual interview with Tony Bennett. (Read the previous versions here: 2012, 2013, 2014.) The one-on-one session at the John Paul Jones Arena recently covered the state of the program, his coaching career, the baseball team’s national title, and more.

Kris: You had a plan when you got here. This is what we need to do to build something that had stagnated. Now that you’ve gone through that, it’s the next task and that’s building a consistent winner, which you’ve talked about several times. When you were with your dad, you watched him build. Who are you drawing from now in this phase? Different places?

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