Dick Bennett enjoys another Final Four ride, this time with his son, Virginia's Tony Bennett

Dick Bennett stood nearby and beamed as his son, Tony, climbed the ladder, just as the elder Bennett had done 19 years earlier in Albuquerque after guiding the Wisconsin basketball program to its first Final Four since 1941. 

When Tony Bennett reached the top step last week in Louisville, he cut down the net, just as his father had done nearly two decades earlier, this time guiding Virginia’s program to the NCAA South Region title and heights it hadn’t reached since 1984.

The normally reserved son then caught his father off guard. Bennett, 49, grabbed the net with his left hand and twirled it in the air. He thrust both hands toward the ceiling of the KFC Yum! Center and yelled with a mix of joy, satisfaction and relief.

One year after becoming the first coach of a No. 1-seeded team to lose to a No. 16 team -- with critics wondering whether his system based on stifling defense and methodical offense could survive in March -- Bennett was near the zenith of his profession.

“That is the most excited or the most demonstrative that I’ve seen him,” Dick, 75, said by phone this week. “He was exuberant. It is a team people love to criticize, especially people who probably have never played basketball at a high level.

“They don’t understand you’ve got to somehow find a way to compete if you don’t possess the same talent level as your opponent. There are a lot of ways to play the game.

“I think Tony understood that, and it was important for them to make a step like this.”

That step set up a semifinal between the top-seeded Cavaliers (33-3) and fifth-seeded Auburn Tigers (30-9) in the first national semifinal Saturday at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. No. 2-seeded Michigan State (32-6) faces No. 3 Texas Tech (30-6) in the second semifinal. 

It was also the latest step in a lifetime journey father and son have taken together in Wisconsin and beyond.

Tony played for his father at UW-Green Bay and as a junior in 1990-91, helped the Phoenix secure the program’s first NCAA tournament berth. He joined the UW program as a volunteer manager before the 1999-2000 season, his father's fifth and last full season as UW’s head coach.

“The reason why I got into this profession is I wanted to be with him at the end of his career,” Tony, in his 10th season at Virginia, said last week in a news conference in Louisville. “I knew he was getting close to retiring. I had played a little bit in the NBA. I just wanted to be by his side and enjoy that. I didn't know what I was going to do.

“Bang, that first year I'm a volunteer manager, he goes to the Final Four. I'm like, that seems pretty easy and pretty fun. Maybe I'll get into this coaching thing. I didn't realize how tough it was.”

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Dick came out of retirement in 2003 to rebuild the Washington State program, with Tony on his staff. After three seasons, father retired and son took over the program. After three seasons as Washington State’s head coach, Virginia came calling.

“To be under my father when he had to do some major rebuilding of programs when I played for him at Green Bay and I watched him rebuild, and was with him at Wisconsin and then at Washington State, that's huge," Tony said. “To watch that up close and personal, to see someone who is willing to be patient and not be distracted and watch them go through it and what it takes to build -- and how they stay true to who they are and what they know will work with little adjustments. Invaluable. …

“If I could be half the coach he is, I'd be thankful.”

That patience, the ability to grind through disappointment, proved to be invaluable for the son.

Under Bennett, Virginia was seeded No. 1 three times in the NCAA tournament before this season -- 2014, ’16 and ’18. The Cavaliers were ousted in the Sweet 16, Elite Eight and first round in those seasons. The 74-54 loss last season to No. 16 Maryland-Baltimore County was the most painful.

Yet Bennett, who uses quotes from TED Talk motivational videos, made sure the defeat galvanized rather than crippled his current team.

“The quote we use -- I'm full of quotes -- is from the TED Talk I showed them at the beginning of the year,” he said. “The quote is: ‘If you learn to use it right, the adversity, it will buy you a ticket to a place you couldn't have gone any other way.’

“I didn't know if that meant we'd get to a Final Four. I just knew that would deepen us in ways on the court, off the court and what we believe and mark us for the right stuff. And that, I think, is what took place.”

Dick faced a similar crossroad after the 1998-’99 season at Wisconsin.

The Badgers were 9-4 in the Big Ten and 21-5 overall and ranked No. 13, but chemistry issues led to a streak of four losses in five games before the NCAA tournament. Wisconsin was seeded No. 5, but the Badgers' season ended with an ugly 43-32 loss to No. 12 Southwest Missouri State in the opening round.

Thirty-two points in 40 minutes. 

Bennett began to doubt whether his system could survive March and shared those thoughts with his brother, Jack Bennett, who had just completed his third season as head coach at UW-Stevens Point, where Dick also had coached for nine seasons.

Jack, who guided UW-Stevens Point to NCAA Division III titles in 2004 and ’05, told his brother to relax.

“You’ll tweak things but the foundation is there,” Jack, 70, recalled this week. “Sound defense. Making it tough on teams to score. And offensively, ball security and hunting down good shots … the main thing is you’ve just to got to get better scorers.

“Tony subscribes to that philosophy, but he allows a little more freedom. It is proven that it can win.”

One season later, Dick was cutting down the nets in Albuquerque, with his son looking on, as the eighth-seeded Badgers held off No. 6 Purdue, 64-60, to win the West Region.

"The kids that came back,” Dick said, “that was a dream team as far as doing everything the way we wanted it done. I knew I was at the end of my career and didn’t think I would get a chance to celebrate that.”

Brad Soderberg, who played for Dick at UW-Stevens Point, was one of his assistants at Wisconsin. He is in his fourth season on the Virginia staff.

“During the pregame speech, he broke down,” Soderberg said after UW defeated Purdue in 2000. “He started crying. Tears were running down his face. I think it finally dawned on him that what he has been building for 35 years was about to happen.”

Tony is the picture of composure on the sideline. Dick never was very good at containing his emotions.

“Tony is much more calm than my brother and me,” Jack said. “We’re full-blooded Italians. Tony has got his mother’s blood in him.”

As Virginia outlasted Purdue in overtime last week to secure the Final Four berth, fans were treated to shots of a calm and collected son working the sideline and a father appearing in anguish in the stands, as if he were still working the Wisconsin sideline, battling Big Ten foes.

“As Dick said, it is so different when you watch your flesh and blood out there,” said Jack, who coached two sons at UW-Stevens Point. “Because you know the agony. You know the criticism they go through when things aren’t going well and you know what the potential glory is.

“And you understand everything in-between.”

That angst had prevented Dick from attending Tony’s games or even watching them on TV. His wife, Anne, usually called after the games to share the results. Dick stayed home during Virginia’s first- and second-round victories over Gardner-Webb and Oklahoma, respectively, in Columbia, South Carolina.

Jack called after each game, beating Anne’s phone call each time.

“Anne always calls me, but he kind of usurped her by about 20 seconds,” Dick said, laughing. “But he tends to analyze everything, and I don’t want an analysis. I just want to know who won."

How did his wife react to being replaced?

“She let me know,” said Dick, who attended Virginia's victory over Oregon in the Sweet 16. "She said: ‘Oh, so you found someone else?’ ”

Virginia's overtime victory over Purdue allowed Tony and Dick to become the second father-son pairing to lead their teams to the Final Four. They joined John Thompson, who led Georgetown to the 1984 national title and two other Final Four berths, and John Thompson III, who led Georgetown to the 2007 Final Four.

Tony hasn’t forgotten watching and listening to his father after Wisconsin defeated Purdue in 2000 to earn a trip to the Final Four in Indianapolis.

“I was sitting in the back of a press conference,” he said. "I memorized his quote. He said a quote I never forgot. It stuck with me for that long.

“They asked him: ‘Is this one of the greatest feelings that you've ever had, getting to the Final Four?’

“He said: ‘From a feeling state, euphoria, yes, it is. But it doesn't compare with faith, with kids, family, grandkids. Because I know what truly matters, it enables me to enjoy what seems to matter like this.’

“I've remembered that quote and tried my best to live by it. I want this program to honor what's important to me, my faith and these young men through success and through failure.

“That's what I've wanted. And he pointed me in the right direction.”

Like father, like son.