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

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 through 10th grade. The elder Odom helped the Cavaliers reach five NCAA Tournaments, including its 1984 run to the Final Four.

His son became a national name after the UMBC upset of Virginia, and one of the hottest up-and-coming coaches in the game. He went 97-60 with the Retrievers.

Being born in North Carolina and playing his college basketball at Hampden-Sydney, outside of Richmond, Odom surprised many when he went west and took the Utah State job in 2021.

Odom went 44-25 in two seasons with the Aggies, leading them to the NIT and then the NCAA Tournament.

He made his move back east in 2023 when he took over at VCU. In his first season in Richmond, Odom led the Rams to a 24-14 mark and a spot in the NIT. This year, VCU went 28-7 and won the Atlantic 10 championship, putting Odom into March Madness yet again.

His team fell in the first round, 80-71, to BYU on Thursday, and by Friday, his deal at Virginia was all but complete.

Odom takes over a Virginia program that has not won an NCAA Tournament game since defeating Texas Tech in Minneapolis in 2019 for the national title.

His own postseason record, since the monumental UVA upset in 2018, is similarly unremarkable.

He’s 0-2 in the NCAA Tournament and 2-2 in the NIT.

Virginia will formally introduce Odom at a news conference Monday at John Paul Jones Arena.

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