Fresh off winning the National Championship on Monday night, Virginia Cavaliers head coach Tony Bennett appeared on SiriusXM this week.

Bennett appeared on the radio show of Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski, ‘Basketball and Beyond,’ to talk about UVA’s 85-77 overtime win over the Texas Tech Red Raiders for the title.

“I’m really happy for you,” said Krzyzewski when welcoming Bennett to his show. “You guys have represented the game so well and your kids, they were men. They were just, they were men.”

Coach K. went on to say that he hopes with the title in tow, Bennett, because of the respect he has from his peers, will take a more forward facing role as a leader for change in college basketball.

“You, in fact, I’m getting chills thinking about it, you are really good for our game and you represent one of the great universities in our country and I need for you to talk about the game and how the game might improve more because people admire you and what you’ve accomplished. You need, not that you haven’t been doing this, but you should be a real leader off the court for our game. You were destined to be this.”

Krzyzewski feels that UVA’s story, becoming the first No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 16 seed and then turn around to win the title a year later is one of the greatest college basketball stories ever.

“The journey that you guys have been on for a little over a year really hasn’t been done. At the end of the day, somebody is winning the National Championship, but not like you guys did it and it’s a tremendous, tremendous story. I don’t know if that’s hit you yet, but it will hit you at some time.”

Bennett said that the full gravity of it all has yet to him.

“You almost don’t have words to say it, but it is such a story,” said the UVA head coach. “The pressure to feel when we were down 14 to Gardner-Webb and all that stuff started creeping back because we were the only No. 1 seed (to lose to a No. 16 seed), but to see our guys step up at that moment and say, ‘okay, we’re just going to be fearless, fight, and not yield and then for them to overcome it. I think that’ll mark their lives with stuff far beyond the game. That’s what I’m so happy for, that they’ll be able to draw from that again and again.”

Krzyzewski agreed. While the ending to UVA final three games on their way to the crown is what fans will remember, it was the comeback as No. 1 seed against No. 16 seed Gardner-Webb that is the moment that was most impactful.

"Tony, what you just said, people will just look at the end of games and they were dramatic end of games, but the meeting of fear against Gardner-Webb was a bigger thing than those end of game situations because fear is such an inhibitor,” said Krzyzewski. “For you guys to conquer it at that point, really, that was it.”

Bennett used that comeback to set the stage for his team before they took the floor on Monday night.

“I told my wife after the game that’s a pressure, and I shared it with the team before we went out of the locker room to play the National Championship Game. I said, ‘you were built for this moment because you handled the pressure that no one’s faced and overcame it, so now, you can step into this game. That prepared you for this moment in a way that no one else has been prepared. So step into it and do what you can do.’”

Although they’re rivals on the floor and on the recruiting trail, Krzyzewski and Bennett have always been friends.

Krzyzewski was the first head coach to speak about the class and humility Bennett showed after falling to UMBC 13 months ago.

He ended the interview with Bennett with this …

“For all the credit we’re going to give our players, I want to tell you, they won because you coached them and you were fantastic. And you’ve been fantastic for our sport.

“You, as a coach, are so deserving of this National Championship, so enjoy it and congratulations to you and your family and your program.”