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Virginia basketball thrives with pack line defense

Remember how last year, this happened?

For fans of defensive basketball (read: Virginia fans), holding a tournament-caliber Harvard team to 27 points was almost the platonic ideal of hoops. Virginia's rise to the top of the college basketball world has been built on defense, and specifically the Pack Line defense engineered by Tony Bennett's father Dick.

Bennett-style defense operates from three philosophical starting points:

  1. Deny the fast break
  2. Deny the dribble penetration
  3. Deny the offensive rebound

The Hoos implement the first point with a conscious decision to get back in transition instead of crashing the offensive glass.