Ryan Odom Hired as New Virginia Basketball Head Coach

Matt Newton | 7 Hours Ago

Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images

Virginia men's basketball has found its new head coach. VCU's Ryan Odom has been hired as the next head coach of the UVA men's basketball program. Odom reportedly signed his contract to become Virginia’s head coach on Friday (March 21st), as first reported by Matt Norlander of CBS Sports. According to Norlander’s report, Virginia will announce Odom’s hiring on Saturday.

Update: Virginia has announced the official hiring of Ryan Odom as the next head coach of the UVA men’s basketball program.

Odom, 50, just wrapped up his third appearance at the NCAA Tournament with a third different program, as his No. 11 seed VCU Rams fell to No. 6 seed BYU in the first round on Thursday afternoon in Denver. In his second season at Virginia Commonwealth University, Odom coached the Rams to a 28-7 overall record, a 15-3 mark in the Atlantic 10, good for a first-place finish, and the Atlantic 10 Tournament title and the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. Last season, Odom guided the Rams to a 24-14 record and a trip to the NIT quarterfinals in his first year at VCU. Before coming to Richmond, Odom spent the previous two seasons at Utah State, where he also led the Aggies to an NCAA Tournament appearance in his second season in Logan.

Of course, Odom's biggest claim to fame connects him with his new school, as he was the head coach at UMBC when the Retrievers made history by becoming the first No. 16 seed to beat a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, taking down Tony Bennett's top-seeded Cavaliers in the first round of the 2018 NCAA Tournament in one of the most shocking upsets in the history of the sport. Odom stuck around at UMBC for three more seasons after that historic win before heading to Utah State. Between UMBC, Utah State, and VCU, Odom has reached the NCAA Tournament in his second season at each of his last three stops.

Ryan Odom's connection to the UVA men's basketball program runs deeper than that famed UMBC upset. His father, Dave Odom, served as an assistant on Terry Holland's staff at Virginia from 1982 to 1989 before becoming the head coach at Wake Forest. Ryan Odom was a ball boy at University Hall in his youth and then played college basketball at Hampden-Sydney College just 65 miles south of Charlottesville.

Odom got his coaching start as a graduate assistant at South Florida in 1996. He then served as an assistant at Furman (1997-1999), UNC Asheville (1999-2000), American (2000-2003), Virginia Tech (2003-2010), and then Charlotte (2010-2015), where he was promoted to associate head coach and then served as the program's interim head coach for the last three months of the 2014-2015 season when Alan Major went on medical leave.

Odom got his first full-time head coaching gig in 2015 at Lenoir-Rhyne, where he spent one season before taking the job at UMBC. Two seasons, later Odom and his Retrievers made history at the expense of the Cavaliers. Including his time as an interim head coach at Charlotte, Ryan Odom has a 222-127 overall record in 10 full seasons as a head coach.

Odom is set to inherit a Virginia program that is just five months removed from the departure of its all-time winningest head coach, as Tony Bennett retired a couple of weeks before the season began. Bennett's longtime assistant and former Charlotte head coach Ron Sanchez was named the interim head coach for the 2024-2025 season and the Cavaliers turned in a 15-17 record and finished ninth in the ACC, their first losing season and worst finish in the ACC since Bennett's first year at UVA in 2009-2010.

Odom will look to revitalize a Virginia program that remains the most recent ACC member to win a national title. Since that redemptive trip to win the 2019 National Championship, the Cavaliers have won two ACC regular season titles and made three trips to the Big Dance, but have not won an NCAA Tournament game.

Odom will have little time to get his bearings at Virginia, as the transfer portal is set to open on Monday, March 24th. In short order, Odom will have to fill out his staff, which will undoubtedly include much of his VCU staff, meet with players on the current UVA roster about potentially remaining with the program, and begin to establish recruiting connections both in the transfer portal and on the high school recruiting trail.

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