Home UVA Basketball: Coaching search appears to be narrowed down to three top candidates
Basketball, Sports

UVA Basketball: Coaching search appears to be narrowed down to three top candidates

Chris Graham
uva basketball
Photo: Mike Ingalls/AFP

The informal committee vetting candidates for the open UVA Basketball head coach job has narrowed its focus to three candidates.

The three: Marquette coach Shaka Smart, 47; VCU coach Ryan Odom, 50; and Furman coach Bob Richey, 41.

Smart, I’m told, would be considered the favorite at this stage in the vetting, with the group, which includes prominent UVA Basketball alums and former coaches, working toward having someone in line to be hired as soon as that person would be available.

Ron Sanchez, 51, has been leading the program as the interim head coach since Tony Bennett, 55, who passed the late Terry Holland as the all-time wins leader at Virginia in 2023, stepped down on Oct. 18.


ICYMI


ron sanchez uva basketball
Ron Sanchez. Photo: Mike Ingalls/AFP

Sanchez had been at Bennett’s side since their days at Washington State on the staff of Bennett’s father, Dick Bennett, with a five-year break between 2018 and 2023, when Sanchez left Virginia to take the head coach job at Charlotte.

After going 72-78 at Charlotte, including a 22-14 mark in his final season, in 2022-2023, Sanchez returned to Bennett’s staff at Virginia in the summer of 2023.

My thinking at that time was that Sanchez returned to put himself into position to eventually succeed Bennett, whose contract was set to expire after the 2025-2026 season, as the head coach.

Bennett would later confirm that he had been thinking as early as the spring of 2021 about stepping down, citing the pressures of recruiting in the transfer portal/NIL era, though he did, curiously, agree to a five-year contract extension last June that would have tethered him to the UVA Basketball job through 2031.


ICYMI


uva tony bennett staff
Photo: Mike Ingalls/AFP

His departure on the eve of the season had two historic precedents – the first involving legendary UNC coach Dean Smith, who stepped down in October 1997, leaving his long-time top assistant, Bill Guthridge, to lead the team, and Guthridge would go on to preside over two Final Four runs in his three seasons as the head coach.

The other, involving Dick Bennett, didn’t work out so well for the top assistant who took over for him at WisconsinBrad Soderberg, who led Wisconsin to an 18-11 finish a year after Bennett had taken the team to a Final Four, ended up not being retained full-time after his interim season, with the school hiring Bo Ryan.

The Ryan hire worked out OK for Wisconsin – his teams compiled a 364-130 record, and he took the team to two Final Four, one Elite Eight and four Sweet Sixteen finishes.

Soderberg, who played at Wisconsin-Stevens Point for Dick Bennett, was on Tony Bennett’s staff at Virginia for 10 years, and is a member of the staff working under Sanchez this season.


ICYMI


uva basketball
Photo: Mike Ingalls/AFP

With all the love for Wisconsin in this story, it might be worth noting that Shaka Smart is, like so many other people mentioned here, is a native of Madison, Wisconsin.

Smart, as the coach at VCU, split a home-and-home series with Bennett-coached UVA teams in 2014 and 2015, with each school winning on the other’s home court.

Ryan Odom has deep UVA Basketball ties – his father, Dave Odom, was an assistant at Virginia under Holland for eight years, and Ryan was a ballboy for UVA games at University Hall.

His other tie to UVA Basketball: he was the coach at UMBC for the famous 16-over-1 upset in the 2018 NCAA Tournament.

Bob Richey isn’t from Wisconsin, and his only tie to UVA Basketball is the upset victory for his Furman team over Virginia in the 2023 NCAA Tournament.


Chris Graham

Chris Graham

Chris Graham, the king of "fringe media," a zero-time Virginia Sportswriter of the Year, and a member of zero Halls of Fame, is the founder and editor of Augusta Free Press. A 1994 alum of the University of Virginia, Chris is the author and co-author of seven books, including Poverty of Imagination, a memoir published in 2019. For his commentaries on news, sports and politics, go to his YouTube page, or subscribe to his Street Knowledge podcast. Email Chris at [email protected].