Former UMBC men’s basketball head coach Ryan Odom is back on the East Coast after taking over the VCU’s men’s basketball program.
The Rams had to search for a new head coach after former head coach Mike Rhoades took the Penn State job. VCU filled its vacancy with someone familiar with the area.
Odom has spent the bulk of his life on the East Coast. Born in North Carolina, he played college basketball in Virginia and was an assistant coach at a number of East Coast schools, including Virginia Tech from 2004-2010. Plus, his father Dave Odom was a head coach at a few schools in the Carolinas and an assistant coach at Virginia.
“I’ve always surrounded Richmond and always found myself coming back this way,” Odom said on Glenn Clark Radio April 6. “I went to college at Hampden-Sydney, which is 15 minutes from here, so I’ve got teammates and coaches that coached me all around that live in the city here. It just made sense for us at this particular time.”
Odom garnered fame as the head coach of the 2017-18 UMBC team that became the first men’s No. 16 seed to defeat a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament when the Retrievers defeated top overall seed Virginia, 74-54.
Though the upset will forever be remembered, Odom considers a different game from that season to be the most exciting contest he ever coached, according to his dad.
“Beating Vermont at Vermont because it was a given that Vermont was going to win the conference tournament every year and advance to the NCAA Tournament,” Dave Odom said on GCR April 13, referring to the America East championship game. “I was really surprised that he said that but in retrospect I think he’s right.”
Ryan Odom compiled a 97-60 record with UMBC from 2016-2021 and guided the Retrievers to the America East regular-season title in 2021.
“I give Ryan credit, he didn’t run away and hide and say this is too much for me,” Dave Odom said. “He buckled his belt and he went to work and he built it every single year. … Every year it was a better team, better team, better team. I hope he can do the same at VCU.”
After staying at UMBC for another three seasons following the historic upset, Ryan Odom left the area to lead the Utah State men’s basketball program. Odom compiled a 44-25 record during his two seasons with the Aggies. Odom guided the Aggies to a No. 10 seed in last month’s NCAA Tournament but Utah State fell in the first round, 76-65, against No. 7 seed Missouri.
Now, Odom is back in Virginia. VCU made its mark on the NCAA Tournament back in 2011 when the No. 11 seed Rams earned the school’s first Final Four appearance after playing in the newly created First Four play-in games. The Rams were just the third No. 11 seed ever to make the Final Four.
“This is a high-major job here,” Odom said. “This is a job that certainly has a tradition of excellence, even before Shaka [Smart] and his staff and players obviously really took it to another level. But even before that, there were some great players, great coaches, great teams in general. For us to be a part of that is tremendous and to add on top of that, it’s basically an opportunity to get back into our network of where we spent the greater part of [my life].”
VCU is coming off another successful season. The Rams went 27-8, winning the Atlantic 10 regular-season and tournament titles. The Rams earned a No. 12 seed in the NCAA Tournament but came up short in the first round, falling to No. 5 seed Saint Mary’s.
Following Rhoades’ departure, the Rams have had a number of key contributors from this past season hit the transfer portal. Odom is now working on building his own roster.
“Recruiting is recruiting,” Odom said. “It’s about getting to know people and relationships and then treating people the right way and making sure you maintain relationships over the course of your career and tapping back into your contacts. … We still have a ton of relationships not only in Richmond but the surrounding Richmond, going north [to Baltimore], going south where I grew up in North Carolina, going west toward Virginia Tech.”
For more from Ryan Odom, listen to the full interview here:
For more from Dave Odom, listen to the full interview here:
Photo Credit: Courtesy of VCU Athletics