A health scare didn’t cause Tony Bennett to abruptly retire three weeks before the start of the new season. Nor did his administration force him to step aside.

The longtime Virginia men’s basketball coach simply doesn’t think he’s the best person to lead the Cavaliers anymore.

Tears in his eyes but a smile on his face, Bennett explained to reporters on Friday morning that he’s not equipped to deal with the challenges of college basketball’s modern-day environment. The three-time national coach of the year said he was a better fit for “the old way,” before the transfer portal produced unfettered free agency and the onset of NIL turned recruiting battles into bidding wars.

“That’s probably the thing that has choked me up the most and the hardest thing to say — when I looked at myself and I realized I’m no longer the best coach to lead this program in this current environment,” Bennett said. “If you’re going to do it, you’ve got to be all in. If you do it half-hearted, it’s not fair to the university and those young men. So, you know, in looking at it, that’s what made me step down.”

Bennett’s sudden retirement comes just four months after he signed a new contract extension that locked him in at Virginia through the 2029-30 season. The 55-year-old had just spoken to reporters about his team at the ACC’s men's basketball tipoff event last week and gave no indication that he was considering stepping aside before Virginia's Nov. 6 season opener against Campbell.

Bennett said he “thought about stepping away” after Virginia’s First Four loss to Colorado State last March, but he started to get excited about coaching again after the Cavaliers landed a promising group of transfers and incoming freshmen. Those feelings reentered Bennett’s mind last week when he and his wife vacationed at the Tides Inn along the Rappahannock River and considered what the future would look like.

“That’s where I came to the realization that I can’t do this,” Bennett said. “It’s not fair to these guys and the institution I love so much when you know you’re not the right guy for this job.”

Bennett isn't the first high-profile men's college basketball coach to decide he no longer wanted to deal with the stress of NIL negotiations, annual roster churn and re-recruiting his own players every fall. The changing landscape of college basketball has hastened the retirement of Roy Williams, Mike Krzyzewski, Jay Wright and Jim Boeheim.

College basketball will miss Bennett as much as any of those other hall of famers. He won 433 games, six ACC titles and a national championship his own way, with dignity, sportsmanship and a uniquely methodical style of play that often frustrated TV viewers as much as it did opposing players.

The son of legendary former Wisconsin coach Dick Bennett, Tony etched his own name into college basketball lore with his achievements as a head coach. He produced back-to-back 26-win seasons at basketball-forlorn Washington State before building Virginia into a perennial national power.

A Virginia program known for its slow-paced, efficient offense and smothering defense won the 2019 national title, surviving a dramatic Elite Eight thriller against Purdue before edging Auburn and Texas Tech the following week. The national championship came a year after Bennett’s team suffered a stunning first-round NCAA tournament loss to UMBC, becoming the first men’s No. 1 seed to lose to a 16 seed.

Bennett endured the crushing setback with trademark grace and perspective. He told his heartbroken team, “If you learn to use adversity right, it can take you to a place you couldn’t have gone any other way.”

As college basketball has changed in recent years, Virginia has slipped a bit as Bennett has tried to adapt. The Cavaliers have not won an NCAA tournament game since the 2019 national title game and missed the 2022 NCAA tournament altogether.

Associate head coach Ron Sanchez will take over the Virginia program on an interim basis and will have a chance to demonstrate he's a potential candidate for the job. Sanchez inherits a team projected to finish fifth in the ACC despite the departures of last year's stars Reece Beekman and Ryan Dunn.

Bennett hopes that Sanchez can find a way to win in the current college basketball climate without sacrificing his program's values.

“I wish it could be me, but it can’t,” Bennett said Friday. “When you know that in your heart, you have to give it away.”