Courtesy of Washington State University

Virginia assistant coach Ron Sanchez (center) worked under head coach Tony Bennett (left) at Washington State for three seasons.

As with some of the other moves Tony Bennett has made during his coaching career, the hiring of Ron Sanchez involved a family connection.

While Bennett is most closely associated with his father, Sanchez comes from another branch of the Bennett family tree.

Bennett, introduced April 1 as Virginia's new men's basketball coach, is the son of former Wisconsin and Washington State coach Dick Bennett. But he also has an older sister, Kathi, who was the head women's coach at Indiana University from 2000-2005.

Sanchez, 36, was a volunteer assistant with the men's team at Indiana from 2001-2003.

Sanchez's connection with the Hoosiers was through a fellow New Yorker, Mark Jackson, who played for the Indiana Pacers.

"I used to work his camps in Indianapolis," Sanchez said. "Through that, I was able to build a relationship with [Indiana coach] Mike Davis and things just kind of took off from there."

Sanchez, one of nine siblings, was born in the Dominican Republic but moved to New York in time to start the second grade. He went to James Monroe High School in the Bronx, N.Y., a baseball power whose more recent graduates include Danny Almonte of Little League baseball fame.

Yankee Stadium was located on 161st Street and the Sanchez family lived on 163rd Street.

"I could see the lights from our apartment building," said Sanchez, who spent many a game in the Yankee Stadium bleachers with tickets provided by the Boys Club.

Sanchez played college basketball at the State University of New York at Oneonta and was named conference player of the year in 1996. He was at SUNY-Oneonta for one year as an assistant coach before spending two seasons at Delhi (N.Y.) College, a junior-college power at the time.

While the Indiana job didn't pay anything, it had plenty of rewards. There Sanchez met his future wife, Hoosiers women's basketball standout Tara Jones.

So, it was Kathi Bennett that provided Sanchez' introduction to the Bennett family, with Dick Bennett not far behind.

"At the time, he was retired," Sanchez said. "He would come down and watch her team practice and give her input here and there, just like he did for us. He's probably the most approachable coach I've ever met."

When Dick Bennett came out of retirement to take the Washington State job, daughter Kathi persuaded him to hire Sanchez for a staff that included Bennett's son, Tony. (Kathi Bennett currently is an assistant at Wisconsin).

For three years, Sanchez was director of basketball operations. He became a full-fledged assistant when Dick Bennett retired in 2006 and turned over the reins to Tony.

That meant Sanchez took to the road for the first time as a recruiter "and he took to it like a fish to water," Tony Bennett said this week. "It was a more natural post for him than operations. He's a relationships guy."

Sanchez relished the idea of a possible move to Virginia.

"We have a 6-month-old son," Sanchez said, "and when this came up, I said, 'Wow, this is going to be great. I can actually drive to New York City. I don't have to put my son on a plane.'

"On top of that, I get to work closely [in New York] with people I have known for a long time, whether it's in the AAU circuits or high-school coaches."

Sanchez has seen some of the success Virginia has enjoyed over the years in New York, signing players like Marc Iavaroni, Olden Polynice, Mel Kennedy, John Johnson, Willie Dersch and McDonald's All-Americans Majestic Mapp and Sylven Landesberg.

"We tried to recruit the New York area at Washington State," Sanchez said, "but to be honest, if a kid was good enough to play at Washington State, he was good enough to play any place in between."

Sanchez and video coordinator Ronnie Wideman followed Bennett from Washington State to Virginia, and there was a possibility of a third assistant coming east before new Cougars' coach Ken Bone appointed former Bennett aide Ben Johnson to his staff.

"Everybody was placed," Bennett said. "That was important to me."

Bennett has expressed nothing but appreciation for the opportunity he was given by Washington State, but it is clear that he and his staff like the idea of recruiting for Virginia.

"When you step in a home, you can answer every question confidently," Sanchez said. "They can't say, 'What about the weather,' or 'what about the facilities,' 'or what about the education,' or 'what about the population [and] the breakdown between ethnicities?'

"It's a university that really can sell itself. You don't need smoke and mirrors."