Virginia Will Not Retain Ron Sanchez as Head Coach, Carla Williams Announces

Ron Sanchez will not be retained as the head coach of the Virginia men's basketball program moving forward, as announced by UVA director of athletics Carla Williams on Tuesday afternoon. The announcement comes just hours after Virginia's season came to an end in a 66-60 loss to Georgia Tech in the second round of the 2025 ACC Men's Basketball Tournament in Charlotte.

"I am grateful to Coach Sanchez for accepting this role during such a critical time for the program," Williams said in a statement on Wednesday afternoon. "Ron is the ultimate professional because he cares deeply about this program and this University. He is an exceptional person because he is gifted as an empathetic and caring human being. He is beloved within our department and in the UVA community. Ron and the staff provided great stability, guidance, and support for the young men on the team and we are thankful for his commitment to UVA and the values that are foundational to Virginia men's basketball."

Sanchez took over as UVA's head coach under the interim tag on October 18th following the retirement of Tony Bennett, coaching the Cavaliers to a 15-17 record and a ninth place finish in the Atlantic Coast Conference. This was Sanchez's 11th season at Virginia, as he served as an assistant on Bennett's staff from 2009 to 2018 before spending five years as the head coach at Charlotte. Sanchez returned to Charlottesville in 2023, serving as associate head coach for the 2023-2024 season.

When asked in the postgame press conference if he felt he deserved the opportunity to be Virginia's full-time head coach, here was the answer Ron Sanchez gave: "Absolutely. I'm a good basketball coach. I am. I have confidence in that. I've been tutored by the right people. I have enough experience with me. Whatever job I get, I take, I'm going to do a good job. People can measure it with wins and losses, but there's so much more than the 30 games that you play. How you sustain a group, how you treat people, how you manage, what kind of leader are you when things are hard. Anybody can do this when it's easy. It takes something different to navigate the ship in stormy waters. I think that's what I'm most thankful for. Not the victories, now, I'm thankful for the hard times that we had because today I'm 10 times a better coach than I was on October 18th."

Virginia will now carry out a national coaching search to choose the next head coach of the UVA men's basketball program. We have written previously about some possible head coaching candidates for Virginia as well as the other major conference coaching vacancies likely to impact UVA's efforts to land a top candidate. Read those stories here:

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Revisiting the Coaching Carousel: Who is UVA Competing With This Offseason?

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