49ers’ Ron Sanchez rides light rail, scooters: How new city, team a fit for new coach

First-year Charlotte 49ers basketball coach Ron Sanchez has spent most of his professional life in college towns: Oneonta, N.Y.; Dehli, N.Y.; Bloomington, Ind.; Pullman, Wash.; and Charlottesville, Va.

Yet Sanchez’s adjustment to a big city has been smooth. In fact, he, wife Tara and two kids are at least temporarily eschewing life in the suburbs by renting an apartment in uptown Charlotte.

Sanchez loves it.

He often takes the 15-minute light rail trip out to UNC Charlotte, where, after grabbing a Starbucks coffee at the student union, he arrives at Halton Arena early enough in the morning to see his players getting in reps in the weight room.

When Sanchez returns at night, he’ll sometimes hop on one of those uptown scooters — yes, he wears a helmet — to get from the train station back to the apartment.

And just a few blocks away is Spectrum Center, where Sanchez walked to a Charlotte Hornets game last week against the Miami Heat. Always the basketball fan and student, Sanchez marveled at how guard Tony Parker took center Willy Hernangomez aside for a lecture during a timeout. He stood and cheered as center Cody Zeller dove off the court for a loose ball.

“It’s a great place to be, with all that’s going on,” Sanchez said of the uptown life.

Sanchez’s primary focus since arriving in Charlotte in March, however, has been on his young 49ers team, which opens the season Tuesday against Chattanooga at Halton Arena.

Sanchez, 45, faces a massive task. Athletics director Mike Hill (himself in his first year at Charlotte) hired Sanchez to revive a program that went 6-23 last season and hasn’t been to the NCAA tournament since 2005. He was left with a roster that — after two players transferred and two more were dismissed from the team — is thin on numbers, experience and size.

It’s a job that would challenge even the most seasoned head coach, much less one who has never run his own program.

“I came in with a good idea of what I was going to face,” said Sanchez, who, as Tony Bennett’s top assistant, helped turn programs around at Washington State and Virginia. “Some things have been more challenging than at the other places I’ve been; some things have been better. Some are talent related. Some are culture related. But as we navigate toward our basic goals, we’re going to expose those things and attack them.”

Sanchez jokes that the big difference between being an assistant and a head coach is that he only had to make “suggestions” to Bennett. Now he makes decisions. And Sanchez has had to make plenty as he’s spent his first eight months on the job making the program over into his own image.

Sanchez threw two players — forwards Najee Garvin and Bryant Thomas — off the team for unspecified reasons (although Garvin had been arrested on a misdemeanor charge of assaulting a female in September). That came after guards Andrien White (Wake Forest) and Ryan Murphy (Washington State after spending a season in junior college) transferred.

“It’s hard when you have to pull an athlete into your office and tell him that this is not an opportunity that you can continue to have,” Sanchez said of his conversations with Garvin and Thomas. “You have to understand that you represent an institution and it’s an honor that you have. There’s a level of appreciation and seriousness that goes into it. But it’s difficult to tell a kid who identifies himself as an athlete that he’s not ready for that.”

Then there is the change in culture that will occur on the court. Sanchez has brought with him Bennett’s “pack” defense, part of a system that helped the Cavaliers to the No. 1 overall seed in last season’s NCAA tournament (and an upset by 16th-seeded Maryland-Baltimore County in, of all places for Sanchez, uptown Charlotte’s Spectrum Center).

The 49ers, who will have at least four true freshmen in their rotation along with senior point guard Jon Davis and senior center Jailan Haslem, will rise and fall on how well they adapt to Sanchez’s defense.

“Grasping it is pretty simple,” said Davis. “Everybody thinks that Virginia runs this complex ‘pack-line’ defense. But understanding it is not that hard. Executing it for the whole 40 minutes is the hard part.”

Davis describes the “pack” defense as making opposing teams shoot contested 3-pointers and keeping them out of the lane.

“And it’s five guys guarding the ball,” Davis said. “You’re helping on both sides of the ball. There’s help on all sides. You’re never by yourself on defense.”

For some, like Davis and Haslem, it’s a matter of getting rid of old defensive habits. For others, like freshmen guards Malik Martin, Brandon Younger and Cooper Robb and forward Dravon Mangum, it’s their first taste of defending at the college level.

“They understand if they don’t play good enough defense, we won’t be competitive,” Sanchez said. “They’re buying in, staying out of old habits. My challenge to them is doing it correctly over and over and over. If we have 60 or 70 (defensive) possessions a game, doing 10 of them good won’t get it done. We have to get that up in high numbers.

“But for the freshmen especially, they’ll have their ups and downs. I’d love one day for all four of them to have a great practice at the same time. But whatever they give us this season is a bonus. What I’m going to value is how they improve and if they’re valuing things we’re doing as a staff.”

Davis, a four-year starter who was recruited by former coach Mark Price, said Sanchez has grown into the job quickly.

“Clearly, he’s gotten a lot more patient,” Davis said. “You come from an ACC school to a Conference USA school and everything’s different. The facilities, the school, the players are different for him. But he’s gotten to understand all that.”

Davis also said Sanchez effectively communicates his vision — culturally and on the court — to everyone in the program.

“He knows that everybody is different, but he expects the same thing,” Davis said. “He’s figured out how to obtain the best out of us, whether it’s visually for some of us, or vocally for others.”

How well this is all working for the 49ers and their new coach will begin to unfold Tuesday.

“It’s a nervous feeling,” Sanchez said. “But at the same time there’s a peace. There’s not a better place for me to be.”