Editor's Note: Over the course of this multi-part series, we have been diving deep into UVa's recent results in the NCAA Tournament and breaking down the data to see what myths can be busted and what long-term lessons can be taken away.

In the final installment, we talk about what goes into winning a title and how we think it all applies to UVa going forward. You can check out the previous installments on the recent wins and losses as well as how regular-season success compares to the tournament results, the "magic number" , the hot takes explained, and the central thesis of the series.

Have a good coach: If you are a UVa fan and think the Cavaliers can do better than Tony Bennett, you are almost surely wrong. There are four teams that have won a title since 2000 and had their coach move on at some point after. Since those coaches left, only UConn has returned to the Final Four with a new coach, as Kevin Ollie won what looks like a fluky title in 2014. He’s gone now, too. That was UConn’s only trip to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament or further since Jim Calhoun retired, and the other three programs—Maryland, Florida, and Louisville—have combined to make just two Sweet 16’s and have gone no further since Gary Williams, Billy Donovan, and Rick Pitino left those respective programs. If you think the next guy will be better than Bennett, a future Hall of Famer, you’re going to be disappointed.

Have good players: Teams that don’t have talented rosters don’t cut down the nets. It’s no accident that UVa won the title with De’Andre Hunter, Ty Jerome, and Kyle Guy leading the way. The transfer portal is going to change the sport but UVa needs to get more players like the three mentioned here and have fewer misses than the Cavliers have had in the classes since. And that’s true of all teams that have national title aspirations.

Be efficient on both ends: Virginia routinely has an elite defense. But we’ve seen a big enough sample size to say that it’s not going to be enough to win titles. UVa has to have a great offense as well, which means the Hoos have to win talented recruits, land big-time transfers, or whatever else they need to do to score enough points. Good defense can take a team really far. But eventually, good offense can beat good defense. If UVa took one of its teams with a great defense and a decent but not elite offense into the game against Purdue two years ago, the Cavaliers don’t advance.

Play better than your opponent: This is the caveat to the points above. Some nights you’re the hammer, and some nights you’re the nail. Every team in the tournament is talented and used to winning games. Sometimes it’s just not your night. Virginia hasn’t lost games like this yet in the Bennett era, or at least “not their night” hasn’t meant playing well and losing, rather than simply not making shots. But losses like this will come, for sure. It’s just how the tournament works.

Pull a UConn: If all else fails, get really hot, win a bunch of close games, and ruin everyone’s bracket. It only happens once in a while, but if you can’t be great, be the Huskies.

Let’s not miss the forest for the trees here. Virginia has been one of the best programs in college basketball over the last decade. UVa is out-performing comparable programs and is not as far away from the blue bloods as people on Twitter want you to think, even when it comes to tournament performance.

There’s only one champion, of course, and everyone else goes home with a loss. UVa has cut down the nets as many times as Kentucky, North Carolina ,and Duke in the last eight years, and one more time than Kansas, Indiana, UCLA, and nearly any other elite program you want to name. The tournament decides the champion, but if you are truly a college basketball fan, then UVa’s 219-50 record in the last eight seasons is impressive.

The Wahoos can get by with off nights in the regular season but they have been costly in March. Every team in the tournament is good, and their seasons are on the line. Virginia has to play with urgency but also simply play well. We don’t have the answers as to why UVa doesn’t stumble as often in the regular season as in the tournament against lesser competition but champions have to be elite on both ends.

When UVa has been great on both ends, the Hoos have made deep runs. But that doesn’t mean that everything should stay exactly as it is. Just as great coaches make in-game adjustments, they also change what they are doing based on personnel, season by season. Bennett has done that, particularly with his offense, and more tinkering is sure to come next year and beyond. But if we were placing bets, UVa will likely finish 353rd in pace next year, because that’s just what it does.

If the Cavaliers want to be a big-time program, the expectations will have to follow. Is it fair to base the success of a program purely on a single-elimination knockout tournament after a 30-game regular season? Probably not. But this is how the sport determines a champion. Everyone knows the stakes, each tournament game means the same thing to both teams competing. That’s what makes the event so great and turns a niche sport into a national sensation for a few weeks in March.

If Bennett is going to continue to climb and become one of the sport’s all-time greats, and if Virginia is truly going to stick around as a top-tier program, rather than a program like Maryland with a fleeting run of dominance before dormance, the Hoos will have to get over the hump in March again.

Nobody can take the 2019 title away, and it was certainly vindication that Bennett and Virginia’s style aren’t incapable of triumph in the Big Dance. But in the words of Mad Men’s Don Draper, “What is happiness? It’s a moment before you need more happiness.”

UVa’s “United Pursuit” in 2019 is just part of an endless pursuit to reach the sport’s pinnacle. Bennett and the Hoos will continue to do things their way. And they’ll likely win a lot of games in the process. And when they inevitably lose in the NCAA Tournament again, people will say their way doesn’t work. There will be a little bit of truth in there and some hypocrisy, as well as frustration and some stupidity. But whenever that loss happens, it’ll likely be a rough night for a good team, not a referendum on a style that “doesn’t work,” but already worked.

UVa doesn’t need to blow up the system to get back to the promised land. The Hoos just need to raise their game.

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