Full disclosure: I’ve known Ryan Odom since he was a ball boy at University Hall in the early 1980s, while his pop, Dave Odom, was Terry Holland’s top assistant.
I had just begun my plunge into this wonderful world of sportswriting, and to be honest, I was more of a Virginia fan than someone covering Virginia sports.
To be totally honest, 45 years later, that’s still true.
I stayed around U-Hall so long after games that Coach Odom would allow Ryan and me to shoot hoops until the poor custodians finally wanted to leave and just turned the lights off.
Now, time for another disclosure: I’ve only seen the VCU Basketball team play a handful of times since the program moved up Broad Street from the Richmond Coliseum in 1999.
I never had a reason to.
But with the internet buzzing about VCU head coach Odom being a candidate for the open coaching job at Virginia, I decided to make the trip down Interstate 64 for Tuesday’s VCU-Saint Louis game.
ICYMI
I mean, I had two options on that mid-January day: stay home, turn on the fireplace (it’s gas), read a good book, or attempt to navigate my ice-covered driveway and make the 35-minute trip to Richmond.
I made it to the Siegel Center in a half-hour.
Born to be a coach
If ever there was someone destined to be a basketball coach, it was Ryan Odom.
Ryan graduated from high school in Winston-Salem, while his dad was the head coach at Wake Forest.
He played four years of college ball at Hampden-Sydney under head coach Tony Shaver and left as the school’s all-time leader in three-point field goals and fourth in assists.
One year later, he began his college coaching career as a graduate assistant coach at South Florida under another Terry Holland assistant, Seth Greenberg.
Odom got his first coaching opportunity at Lenoir and then moved to the University of Maryland Baltimore County; yes, that UMBC.
Odom spent five years at UMBC, moved across the country to become head coach at Utah State for two seasons, and finally went back to Virginia as the Rams’ head coach.
Fun to watch
A year and a half into his coaching tenure in Richmond’s Fan District, Odom has the Siegel Center raucous.
Tuesday’s 78-62 win over Saint Louis, which entered the game at 3-0 in A-10 play, was punctuated when local product Brandon Jennings had a steal in the backcourt and then immediately nailed a three-pointer to give the Rams a commanding 64-51 lead, that made the roof come off the building.
Jennings, the 2024 Richmond All-Metro MVP, said this about the play: “I got a deflection on the initial inbounds pass. And then they were a little confused; I seized the opportunity, got my hands on the ball, kept my feet inbounds, and shot the three.”
Moments later, VCU came up with another backcourt steal, followed by a Joe Bamisile slam that put the game out of reach for the Billikens.
It was through this sequence of second-half plays that I got a good vision of how Odom wants his teams to play.
ICYMI
“In the second half, we continued to apply defensive pressure, but we were able to limit our fouls, got some turnovers, and runouts, and continued to pound the offensive glass,” said Odom.
And man, did they ever pound the offensive boards.
The Rams were credited with 22 offensive rebounds on the night.
The deceiving part of Odom’s coaching style is that while it’s obvious he prefers an up-tempo style of play, the game concluded with VCU only having 66 total offensive possessions.
In today’s college game, that’s very pedestrian.
The Rams aren’t shy of shooting the three; against Saint Louis, they took 33, making 10.
Take note that I said they took 33 three-point shot attempts; they took, for the most part, what the Billiken defense provided, the first, best look, regardless of where that shot was on the floor or the shot clock dictated.
Back to the Rams’ offensive rebounding prowess: it’s not by accident, it’s Odom’s objective.
VCU outrebounded St. Louis 38-26 overall.
And those 22 offensive rebounds?
Those extra chances helped VCU attempt 72 field goals to just 37 for the Billikens.
Catching up with Odom after the game, he made it a point to remark about those second-chance opportunities.
“We’d love to have those opportunities (22 offensive rebounds) every game; the key is, do we want, and are we? That’s what I measure our guys by; are they giving the effort every time?”
Something special
I can’t, and won’t, predict just how far VCU may go this season; I don’t know enough about the Atlantic 10, or for that matter, the Rams.
What I do know is that the 7,500-plus fans that turned out on a bitterly cold night in January like what they have.
And so does Ryan Odom, who went out of his way to praise everyone surrounding his program.
“Scott, this is such a great place. Everyone has a part: my staff, the support folks, everyone is involved.”
After seeing it in person, I agree that VCU has something special with Ryan Odom.
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