Ryan Odom Retains Mike Curtis and Ethan Saliba, Announces Other Support Staff

Matt Newton | Apr 8, 2025

Virginia Athletics

Ryan Odom announced some additional support staff hirings for the Virginia men's basketball program on Tuesday afternoon (April 8th). According to the UVA press release, Kelsey Knoche will serve as Director of Operations, Matt Hart will be the Director of Analytics, Billy Bales will serve as Video Coordinator, and Ahmad Thomas will be Odom's Director of Recruiting. All of these individuals are following Odom to Virginia from VCU, where they served in similar roles over the last two seasons.

Additionally, Odom announced that Mike Curtis and Ethan Saliba will be retained in their roles on the UVA support staff. Curtis has served as Virginia's Head Strength and Conditioning Coach for the last 16 seasons, while Saliba has been a member of the Virginia athletic training staff for 42 years and has been the Associate Athletics Director for Sports Medicine since 2007 and has served UVA's Head Athletic Trainer since 1998.

It was previously announced that three of Odom's assistants at VCU - Matt Henry, Bryce Crawford, and Darius Theus - are coming with him to Virginia and he also tabbed Longwood head coach Griff Aldrich as his associate head coach.

Kelsey Knoche has served as Odom's director of operations for the last four seasons, following him from Utah State to VCU and now to Virginia. According to the UVA press release, Knoche was one of just 15 women to hold the title of director of operations on a Division I men's basketball coaching staff in the 2024-2025 season. Before joining Odom's staff at Utah state in 2021, Knoche was an assistant coordinator for six seasons at Maryland, organizing on-campus visits and the coaching staff's recruiting-related travel. Knoche is a native of Fairfax, Virginia, and graduated from Maryland's Merrill College of Journalism in 2015. As an undergrad at Maryland, Knoche worked as student operations assistant with the Terrapins' men's basketball program before becoming an assistant coordinator.

Matt Hart played college basketball at Hamilton College and then George Washington, where he shot better than 42% from three in his two seasons there and helped lead his team to the 2016 NIT Championship. He served as George Washington's director of player development and video operations in the 2018-2019 season, but played professionally in four different countries before and after that stint at GW. He then served as an assistant coach at Daemen University in 2021-2022 and then joined Odom's staff at Utah State as a graduate student manager in 2022-2023. Hart became Odom's director of analytics at VCU for the last two seasons and will now serve in that role at Virginia.

Billy Bales played basketball at Lenoir-Rhyne and helped lead the Bears to an NCAA Division II Regional Final appearance in 2016. He spent two seasons as a graduate assistant at his alma mater before joining Odom's staff as a volunteer assistant at UMBC for the 2020-2021 season, handling a variety of responsibilities. Bales has been with Odom ever since, serving as director of player development at Utah State from 2021-2023 and the director of video at VCU from 2023-2025.

Finally, Danville, Virginia native Ahmad Thomas follows Odom to Virginia after spending the last two seasons as his coordinator of player development at VCU. Thomas played college basketball for UNC Asheville, where he was a two-time Big South Defensive Player of the Year and a two-time First-Team All-Big South selection. He served as the associate head coach of Team Loaded North Carolina on the AAU circuit and then got his first college basketball coaching gig, spending the 2022-2023 season as the director of recruiting and development at UNC Greensboro. Thomas then joined Odom's staff at VCU as coordinator of player development and will now serve as Virginia's director of recruiting.

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