Reports: Ryan Odom Hired At Virginia

As the ACC Coaching Overhaul Continues

Word broke on Friday that Virginia will hire VCU’s Ryan Odom. Is it a home run hire? Probably not - that’d be Drake’s Ben McCollum - but it’s a very good one.

Other than when he served as an interim coach at Charlotte (8-11) and during Covid at UMBC (16-17 and our feeling has always been everyone gets a pass on Covid), Odom has done quite well. He was at Lenoir-Rhyne for a year, then UMBC where the Retrievers made history for upsetting his new employers as the first #16 seed to ever win a tournament game, then Utah State for two, then back to VCU for two more before heading home to Charlottesville.

We say home, because Odom, who was born in Durham, grew up in Charlottesville when his father, Dave, was an eager beaver Terry Holland assistant. We think we read somewhere that he was a ballboy for the Cavaliers. How cool would it be to come home now?

Rumors are he’ll hire Longwood head coach Griff Aldrich as Virginia’s GM. Aldrich has a law degree and was also previously an Odom assistant at UMBC and they’ll start fishing in the portal once it opens on Monday.

Here’s our updated list of ACC coaches. The bolded names are the ones we think have a good shot at tournament play next season (obviously a long way to go on that, so just hunches for the most part). The rest are in no particular order though Florida State’s Luke Loucks has never been a head coach at any level so we put him at the end for the moment.

1. Duke - Jon Scheyer - perhaps the smoothest transition from a legend ever. Currently averaging 28.3 wins a season. That’s pretty great.
2. Clemson - Brad Brownell - people don’t get how tough it is to win at Clemson. He can’t get the top-drawer recruits so he has to develop talent, which he’s done brilliantly.
3. Louisville - Pat Kelsey - big success at Winthrop and Charleston and what he’s done at Louisville this year is freaky deaky good.
4. UNC - Hubert Davis - yes he’s erratic, but he’s been to a title game and at his best has been really good.
5. NC State - Will Wade - never had a losing season, just 42 and could get much better still.
6. Miami - Jai Lucas - expecting greatness but have nothing to go on yet.
7. SMU - Andy Enfield - an outstanding offensive coach. A solid addition to the ACC with a great class coming next year.
8. Virginia - Ryan Odom - freshly hired, Odom has a career record of 222-127 (.636). He’s shown solid chops at every stop and, assuming he can get players, should do well at Virginia too.
9. Wake Forest - Steve Forbes - we’d prefer more NCAA bids (okay, any) but in general, he’s made Wake much better than it was when he took the job and Wake is no pushover. And all of that as NIL and transfer rules have totally changed the game. Pretty good job by Forbes.
10. Virginia Tech - Mike Young - an offensive master who nearly led Wofford to an upset of Kentucky in the NCAA tournament. Wofford! Facilities and NIL may be holding him back.
11. Notre Dame - Micah Shrewsberry - he’s volatile obviously but well-respected by his peers. Injuries really hurt the Irish this year. Next year he has an excellent class coming in, so look out.
12. Georgia Tech - Damon Stoudamire - like Shrewsberry, in his second year and this year, like Notre Dame, was axed by injuries. Handled the situation beautifully. No one wanted to see this team coming.
13. Cal - Mark Madsen - still building his program but Cal shows signs of reflecting his hyper-competitive personality as we saw most clearly at the tail end of the season.
14. Stanford - Kyle Smith - did well in his first ACC season and one of the best at using analytics, applying it even to recruiting.
15. Boston College - Earl Grant - his teams show immense effort but not great talent. NIL may be the issue here too.
16. Syracuse - Adrian Autry - his first year was acceptable but this year was poor.
17. Pitt - Jeff Capel - he’s been at Pitt for several years now and will need to show some progress.
18. Florida State - Luke Loucks - we’ll see.

• Virginia expected to hire former VCU coach Ryan Odom to lead Cavaliers
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• Report: Ryan Odom Agrees to Contract as Virginia HC After VCU’s March Madness Loss
• Report: Ryan Odom Agrees to Contract as Virginia HC After VCU’s March Madness Loss
• Virginia to hire Ryan Odom, who once engineered 16-seed upset of No. 1 Cavaliers in NCAA Tournament
• Virginia to hire Ryan Odom, who once engineered 16-seed upset of No. 1 Cavaliers in NCAA Tournament
• Virginia turning to darkest moment in program history in search for next head coach
• Virginia reportedly set to hire VCU’s Ryan Odom, who coached UMBC over Cavs in historic 16-vs.-1 NCAA tournament upset
• UVA finalizing Ryan Odom’s hire as basketball coach, sources say