Wisconsin, Virginia headline the 2023 men's Fort Myers Tip-Off. What you need to know to watch
There’s such a flavor of Wisconsin this year in the Fort Myers Tip-Off, don’t be surprised if you see tailgaters and the smell of brats and cheeseburgers in the Suncoast Arena parking lot.
On the women’s side, Wisconsin and Marquette are competing.
On the men’s side, the premiere game is Virginia and the Badgers, who are coached by Greg Gard. He grew up in a small Wisconsin town where his dad was a pig farmer; and Tony Bennett, who played and coached for his dad Dick at Wisconsin-Green Bay and Wisconsin.
The sold-out game is 6 p.m. Monday on FS1.
The Badgers and Cavaliers are coached by two of college basketball’s best tacticians. And two of the best people in the sport.
Gard’s preparation – as an assistant − played a huge role in Wisconsin upsetting unbeaten Kentucky in the Final Four and advancing to the championship in 2015.
After becoming the first No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 16 seed in the 2018 tournament, Bennett taught his players to be accountable and face their adversity head on in the offseason. In 2019, Virginia won the national championship.
“When my dad came out of retirement to coach at Washington State, one of the first things he said at the press conference was ‘I have to recruit a group of players I can lose with,’ ” said Tony Bennett, who assisted his father. “He knew it would take time to turn it around, and there were a lot of close losses.
“I was extremely proud of our guys because they fought through it. They were not ruffled. They were so steady and they handled the pressure.”
A deeply spiritual person, Bennett recalls having a conversation with himself as well as his players when they again found themselves down double digits in their first NCAA tourney game in 2019.
“I remember having an internal conversation with our Lord,” Bennett said. “I said, ‘I’d rather not go through this experience again, but if it’s your will…
“In that moment, here we are again; but our guys withstood the pressure and the moment. At halftime, we had narrowed the deficit so we just said to keep doing what we’re doing.”
Bennett said he didn’t plan on being a basketball coach, partly because of how much his father agonized over the losses. When Bennett coached in high school at Eau Claire Memorial, sports editor Ron Buckli asked Bennett’s father what he said to his son after a tough loss in tournament play: “Get out of coaching.”
While former Indiana and Texas Tech coach Bob Knight may be considered the best coach at maximizing talent – he had one NBA all-star on his rosters – Dick Bennett is right up there.
When Dick Bennett took a gritty Wisconsin team to the Final Four in 2000, Tony was a volunteer manager. He just finished his master’s in business administration.
“One of my main jobs was to make sure, during media timeouts, to get the chairs folded out so we could move them out to the floor for the players to sit on,” Tony said. “When we went on that run to the Final Four, I got caught up hook, line, and sinker. It’s where I said, ‘I think I want to coach.’ ”
Among the many things he learned from his father, Tony Bennett said it’s developing a humbleness and sense of purpose when taking over programs.
At every college stop Dick Bennett made from UW-Stevens Point to UW-Green Bay to Wisconsin to Washington State, he faced major rebuilding jobs in places that had little basketball history.
“There were questions like, ‘Are they gonna score enough, what’s the style of play?,’ “ Tony recalled. “When you get humbled a lot and get beat early on, it teaches you a few things. When everything is stripped from you, you find out what really matters. You find out what kind of people you want to build with. There’s a level of simplicity. You get things in place. It’s signature stuff.
“Now my dad was intense and fiery, but if he felt he stepped over the line and pushed over the line, he’d say, ‘Forgive me, I screwed up.’ That’s what a leader will say, I was wrong.
“Now, you can’t do that day after day. But if you do it when you’re wrong, the guys will rally and run behind you. That’s huge.”
This year’s Virginia edition is not the biggest or heftiest, as Bennett said. Plans are for three players to be redshirted.
But there is a neutral site win over Florida and three others by an average of more than 29 points.
“The one thing I like is that there’s been good effort,” he said. “There’s good heart on this team and they’re scrapping hard.”
Dunn leads trio of Cavaliers
Led by Ryan Dunn, Isaac McKneely and Reece Beekman, Virginia has five players averaging around 10 points per game.
Virginia has won three of the last four meetings with Wisconsin, going back to 2012. The winning team never has scored more than 60 points.
After missed free throws cost Wisconsin in a loss to Final Four contender Tennessee, missed layups cost the Badgers dearly in a defeat to Providence.
After seeing his team go 7-for-20 on layups and chippies, coach Gard constantly used the world “finish” when asked what players like Steven Crowl and Tyler Wahl needed to do.
St. John’s transfer A.J. Storr and freshman John Blackwell have been sparks but Connor Essegian, one of the Big Ten’s top freshmen last season, has been slowed by a back injury.
Huggins gone from West Virginia
West Virginia interim coach Josh Eilert has replaced Bob Huggins, who had been at the school since 2007. Huggins led the Mountaineers to the Final Four in 2010.
The Mountaineers, who lost to Monmouth, have three players scoring in double figures led by Quinn Slazinski.
Ranked Texas A&M brought SMU back to earth after three straight wins to start the season.
The Mustangs are led by Chuck Harris, an excellent 3-point shooter, and Tyreek Smith, who can fill up a stat sheet.
In the Palms Division, UNC-Wilmington, Murray State, and Appalachian State will face each other in round-robin play.
UNC-Wilmington (3-0), which will play at FGCU on Friday, has played two non-Division I schools so far.
Forward Trazerien White is averaging 19.3 points, five rebounds per game while shooting at better than 65 percent from the field.
Murray State (2-1) has five players averaging in double figures, led by guard Rob Perry (16.0, 5.3).
Appalachian State (1-2), which lost in overtime to Oregon State, is led by forward Donovan Gregory, who’s making half his 3-pointers while averaging 14.3 points and 4.7 rebounds per game.
Fort Myers Tip-Off (Men): What to know
When: Monday-Wednesday
Where: Suncoast Credit Union Arena
Ticket information: www.fortmyerstipoff.com/tickets Note: Tickets for the Beach Division of the Fort Myers Tip-Off, featuring Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and SMU, are sold out.
How to Watch Virginia, Wisconsin, West Virginia and SMU men's basketball
Beach Division
Monday’s games
6 p.m.: Wisconsin vs. Virginia, FoxSports1
8:30 p.m.: West Virginia vs. SMU, FS1
Wednesday’s games
6 p.m.: 3rd-place game, FS1
8 p.m.: Championship, FS1
Palms Division
Monday’s game
1:30 p.m.: UNC-Wilmington vs. Murray State, FSWBucs.com
Tuesday’s game
Noon: UNC-Wilmington vs. Appalachian State, FSWBucs.com
Wednesday’s game
Noon: Appalachian State vs. Murray State, FSWBucs.com
Team capsules
SMU
Nickname: Mustangs
Conference: American Athletic
NCAA Tournament history: Southern Methodist has made 12 NCAAs with a Final Four Coming in 1956.
Fun fact: SMU maintains a campus in Taos, NM, built on the site of a pre-Civil War fort and home to the excavation of a 13th-century Indian pueblo.
Virginia
Nickname: Cavaliers
Conference: ACC
NCAA Tournament history: Virginia has made 25 NCAAs and won the tournament in 2019, a year after losing in the first round as a No. 1 seed.
Fun fact: Virginia has the ACC's best record the last 10 years at 144-41. Duke is second at 131-55.
West Virginia
Nickname: Mountaineers
Conference: Big 12
NCAA Tournament history: West Virginia has made 31 NCAAs. Led by Jerry West, the Mountaineers lost in the 1959 title game.
Fun fact: The WVU Morgantown campus is in a town named ‘No. 1 Small City in America’ by BizJournals.com for its exceptional quality of life.
Wisconsin
Nickname: Badgers
Conference: Big Ten
NCAA Tournament history: Wisconsin has made 26 NCAAs. It won the 1941 national title and finished as runners-up in 2015.
Fun fact: Carter Gilmore's father, Brian, played for former Wisconsin head coach and hall of famer Bo Ryan's first Division III national championship team at UW-Platteville in 1991
Appalachian State
Nickname: Mountaineers
Conference: Sun Belt
NCAA Tournament history: Appalachian State has made three NCAAs, the last in 2021.
Fun fact: Former ECS star Corey Lynch blocked a field goal to help FCS Appalachian State upset Michigan 34-32 in 2007.
Murray State
Nickname: Racers
Conference: Missouri Valley
NCAA Tournament history: Murray State has made 18 NCAAs and has advanced to the Round of 32 in 2010, 2012, 2019 and 2022.
Fun fact: Murray State played in the Ohio Valley Conference for 74 years before moving to the MVC in 2022.
North Carolina-Wilmington
Nickname: Seahawks
Conference: Colonial Athletic
NCAA Tournament history: UNC-Wilmington has made six NCAAs. It upset USC in the first round in 2002 before falling to eventual national runner-up Indiana.
Fun fact: In 2019, UNC-Wilmington became the first university in the nation to offer a B.S. in coastal engineering.
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: What you need to know about the Fort Myers Tip-Off headlined by Virginia, Wisconsin
