OK, now it’s official, with UVA Athletics announcing Ryan Odom as the next head men’s basketball coach at Virginia, and setting a press conference for Monday at 3 p.m. at JPJ to introduce Odom to the world.
Who woulda thunk this, right, seven years ago this week. It registered with me last night, the Friday night of the first round of the 2025 NCAA Tournament, when the news broke that UVA had come to terms with Odom, that it was the Friday night of the first round of the 2018 NCAA Tournament when the bad thing happened that we will hear a lot about over the next year.
#TeamAFP’s Scott German was recounting to me a moment from the postgame in the halls of the Spectrum Center from that night, when he ran into Dave Odom, the former UVA Basketball assistant, and Ryan’s father, who told Scott that he was going through the most confusing day of his life, happy, obviously, for his son, and heartbroken for Tony Bennett and UVA.
Dave Odom was once the heir apparent at UVA, after a long stint as the top assistant on the staff of Terry Holland, but the AD at the time, Jim Copeland, screwed the pooch on the succession, deciding on a national search that led to Rick Barnes, who accepted the job, then changed his mind.
Dave Odom ended up at Wake Forest, where he had a nice run built around a guy you may have heard of named Tim Duncan, on his way to 406 career D1 coaching wins.
Ryan Odom was a ball boy at University Hall starting in his third-grade year all the way into his high-school years.
He went on to play college ball at D3 Hampden-Sydney, where he was the starting point guard for four years, leading the team to two NCAA Tournament berths.
From there, he began working his way up the coaching ladder, with stints at American University, under former UVA point guard and head coach Jeff Jones, and Virginia Tech, under former UVA assistant Seth Greenberg,
The UVA Basketball ties are strong with this one.
Details: Monday rollout
UVA Athletics will hold a press conference Monday, March 24, at 3 p.m. ET on the main court at John Paul Jones Arena to introduce Ryan Odom as the new men’s basketball coach.
The event is open to the public with free parking available in the main JPJ lot.
There are also several options for fans to watch the press conference. ACC Network will broadcast the press conference live. A live stream will be available on UVA’s athletics website VirginiaSports.com. The event will also be live streamed on Facebook at @VirginiaCavaliers.
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Chris Graham
