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UVA Basketball Officially Announces Ryan Odom as Next Head Coach

Matthew Newton|
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Virginia Cavaliers

Ryan Odom has officially been hired as the next head coach of the Virginia men's basketball program, as announced by UVA director of athletics Carla Williams on Saturday (March 22). A press conference will be held to introduce Ryan Odom as the new UVA men’s basketball head coach on Monday at 3pm ET at John Paul Jones Arena. The event will be open to the public and the ACC Network will broadcast the event live.

Odom’s move to become the head men’s basketball coach at the University of Virginia keeps him in the Commonwealth of Virginia, as he comes from VCU, where he just led the Rams to a 28-7 record, a first place finish in the Atlantic 10, and the tournament title and the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. VCU was the No. 11 seed in the Big Dance and suffered a first round loss to the No. 6 seed BYU Cougars on Thursday in Denver.

Odom has taken three different programs to the NCAA Tournament, each time taking his team to the tournament in his second year at the school. Prior to coming to VCU, Odom spent the previous two seasons at Utah State, where he guided the Aggies to an NCAA Tournament appearance in his second season in Logan.

Of course, Odom’s biggest coaching achievement came against Virginia, as he was the head coach at UMBC when the Retrievers became the first No. 16 seed to beat a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, taking down Tony Bennett and the No. 1 overall seed Cavaliers in the first round of the 2018 NCAA Tournament in one of the most shocking upsets in college basketball history. Odom remained at UMBC for three more seasons after that historic win before heading to Utah State. Between his stints at UMBC, Utah State, and VCU, Odom has reached the NCAA Tournament in his second season at each of his last three coaching stops.

Ryan Odom's connection to the Virginia men's basketball program goes well beyond than that famed UMBC upset. His father, Dave Odom, served as an assistant on Terry Holland's Virginia staff from 1982-1989 before becoming the head coach at Wake Forest. Ryan Odom was a ball boy at University Hall in his childhood and went on to play college basketball at Hampden-Sydney College, which is located just 65 miles south of Charlottesville.

Odom’s coaching career began as a graduate assistant at South Florida in 1996. He was then an assistant coach at Furman, UNC Asheville, American, Virginia Tech, and then Charlotte, where he was promoted to associate head coach and served as interim head coach for the second half of the 2014-2015 season when head coach Alan Major went on medical leave.

Odom became a full-time head coach for the first time in 2015 at Lenoir-Rhyne, where he spent one season before taking the UMBC job. Ryan Odom comes to Virginia with a 222-127 overall record as a head coach.

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Matt Newton
MATTHEW NEWTON

Matt launched Virginia Cavaliers On SI in August of 2021 and has since served as the site's publisher and managing editor, covering all 23 NCAA Division I sports teams at the University of Virginia. He is from Downingtown, Pennsylvania and graduated from UVA in May of 2021.

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