​ACC Preview #1 – UNC || ACC Preview #2 – NC State || ACC Preview #3 – Wake Forest
Last year, Virginia shed the final vestiges of Bennett Ball as Ryan Odom, a coach who loves the run, reshaped things for the better. Former coach Tony Bennett liked to keep games in the 50s, then let his teams clamp down at the end. That approach generally worked very well, but one program that flipped the script on Bennett was UMBC in 2018. You likely remember: Virginia earned the No. 1 seed, and UMBC didn’t merely beat them; they demolished them, 74-54. And perhaps the two biggest upsets in college basketball history both involved the Cavaliers: UMBC’s stunning upset and the even more shocking 1982 loss to Chaminade, 77-72. That Chaminade squad featured Ralph Sampson, an incredible player in his own right. And of course, the coach of that 2018 UMBC crew was Ryan Odom, who has his own connection to UVA. His father, Dave Odom, served as a Terry Holland assistant from 1982 to 1989.
Odom’s ties to UVA run deep. He was even a ballboy once: “Every day, when school got out, Ryan would go back to the house, he’d change into his basketball clothes and would get on his bike, cross over the viaduct on Alderman Road and drive right onto the court,” the elder Odom told the Roanoke Times in 2011. “He’d park the bike behind the bench, walk over and sit down next to [Jeff Jones], and they’d watch practice and dribble the ball between their legs. [Jeff] talked more about basketball with him than I did.” The younger Odom moved with his family to Charlottesville when he was seven, then to Winston-Salem at twelve when his father took the Wake Forest job.
As a player, Odom came up under former UNC walk-on Tony Shaver, a coach who excelled at the lower levels, arguably better than Matt Doherty. Shaver won 584 games at Hampden-Sydney and William & Mary and helped Odom fall in love with the running game.
So, to be frank, the most influential figures in Virginia basketball today trace back to Wake Forest and UNC. And that’s not exactly a cause for complaint. The UMBC shocker is a source of laughter now, and the Wake and UNC influences don’t matter when your coach opens with a 30-6 record. Could that be a fluke? Not when you consider Odom’s background. In his first full-time role, he went 21-10 at Lenoir-Rhyne. He moved to UMBC after one season, posting a winning record in every year except one. At Utah State, he went 44-25, and at VCU, 52-21. All told, he’s 252-133, a winning percentage of .655. By comparison, Clemson’s Brad Brownell sits at .623, or former Blue Devil Lefty Driesell at .666. And yes, you can verify those numbers.
Odom clearly seems to know what he’s doing, and because he kept his roster intact—something rare in today’s game—he’s positioned well. Now, onto the roster.
Returnees Silas Barksdale—6-9, a name that helps with search visibility. Minimum 500-word focus to come.