It’s always darkest before the dawn. While I don’t think that’s scientifically true, it was certainly the case for the Virginia basketball program. Tony Bennett’s Cavaliers had their darkest moment in 2018, becoming the first No. 1 seed in NCAA Tournament history to lose to a No. 16 seed, and that moment led directly to a national championship one year later. Now, after Bennett’s surprise retirement last offseason and a 15-17 season under Ron Sanchez, Virginia is looking back to that dark moment in search of a new dawn in Charlottesville.
When UMBC upset UVA in 2018, the story was about Bennett’s Tournament shortcomings, but now Cavaliers fans, and the decision-makers at Virginia are focused on the head coach who was on the other bench, Ryan Odom. According to ESPN’s Pete Thamel, Odom is expected to become the next head coach at Virginia after leading his third different program to The Big Dance.
NEWS: VCU coach Ryan Odom has emerged as the target for the Virginia job, and a deal is expected to come together in the upcoming days, sources tell me and @jeffborzello. He’s led VCU, Utah State and UMBC to the NCAA tournament in his career. pic.twitter.com/06yf7TW3pn
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) March 21, 2025
Virginia expected to hire VCU head coach Ryan Odom
Odom spent three more seasons at UMBC after that historic upset and failed to lead the Terriers back to the NCAA Tournament. Then, he turned around Utah State in just two seasons, reaching the NCAA Tournament in 2023 with the Aggies before returning to the East Coast as the head coach of VCU, just an hour east of Charlottesville in Richmond. Odom won 52 games over a two-year stint with the Rams, bowing out in the first round of the NCAA Tournament on Thursday with an 80-71 loss to No. 6 seed BYU.
Now, Odom appears to be the next head coach at Virginia, the place where his name has lived in infamy for the past seven years, but he will be a welcome arrival for Cavaliers fans. While he doesn’t run Bennett’s patented pack-line defense, Odom’s VCU teams have had an aggressive defensive mentality that will endear him to a fanbase starved for an ACC contender.
UVA earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament four times over a six-season stretch from 2014-19 with six ACC regular season titles over Bennett’s tenure, the latest of which occurred in 2022-23. This season, Sanchez, a former Bennett assistant who took over in an interim capacity, led the team to just eight wins an a conference that only earned four NCAA Tournament bids, and may not have been deserving of that many.
Duke is a superpower, but with North Carolina struggling under Hubert Davis, the ACC is wide-open. Brad Brownell has found consistency at Clemson and Pat Kelsey has Louisville trending in the right direction, but both teams had first-round March Madness exits on Thursday. The old guard of ACC head coach, Coach K, Roy Williams, Bennett, Leonard Hamilton, and Jim Larrañaga at Miami, have all phased out of the conference. With a history of NCAA Tournament success and trips with three different programs, Odom will have the opportunity to become a key part of the new wave of ACC success at UVA.