Virginia hires VCU coach Ryan Odom, whose father was a Cavaliers assistant

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CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — Virginia athletic director Carla Williams is hoping the obvious choice was the right one.

Williams named VCU coach Ryan Odom — whose father was a Cavaliers assistant and who handed the program its most historic and crushing defeat in the 2018 NCAA Tournament — as the full-time replacement to Tony Bennett on Saturday.

Odom’s season ended Thursday with a first-round NCAA Tournament loss to BYU. The Rams are the third team he’s taken into March Madness, leading UMBC and Utah State there in his previous coaching stops.

At UMBC, he made college basketball history, with Virginia on the wrong end of it. Odom’s Retrievers became the first No. 16-seed to upset a 1-seed when they routed the heavily favored Cavaliers 74-54 in 2018.

Seven years later, Odom is being tasked with getting Virginia — which recovered to win the 2019 national championship — back into contention for No. 1 seeds.

Bennett stunningly retired just three weeks before the start of the 2024-25 season. He went 364-136 in 15 years leading the Cavaliers, guiding them to 10 NCAA Tournaments.

His longtime assistant, Ron Sanchez, was named interim coach. Sanchez went 15-17 this year — the first time the Cavaliers have finished with a losing record since 2009-10, Bennett’s first season leading the program.

Williams announced she would not retain Sanchez just hours after the Cavaliers’ season ended with an ACC Tournament loss to Georgia Tech — and speculation immediately turned to Odom.

The 50-year-old Odom wasn’t the only name Williams considered as she focused her search on current head coaches, including New Mexico’s Richard Pitino and Grand Canyon’s Bryce Drew.

But he was, from the start, the favorite for the post in Charlottesville, where he spent much of his childhood, serving as a Cavaliers ball boy and riding his bicycle to University Hall to attend practices after his school day finished.

His father was a Virginia assistant from 1982-1989, when Ryan was in third…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/article/virginia-hires-vcu-coach-ryan-164825059.html

Author : MIKE BARBER

Publish date : 2025-03-22 16:48:00

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