VCU hires Utah State coach Ryan Odom after Mike Rhoades’ departure to Penn State

VCU is losing no time getting its subsequent coach in place. With Mike Rhoades accepting a seven-year supply to maneuver to Penn State, the Rams have employed Utah State coach Ryan Odom, the college introduced Wednesday evening. 

CBS Sports activities was the primary to report the transfer earlier on Wednesday.

“We welcome Ryan Odom as our subsequent basketball coach with nice pleasure about our future,” VCU athletic director Ed McLaughlin stated. “Ryan has gained at each cease alongside his teaching journey and has performed it with a player-centered strategy that develops them into younger males who will succeed on this planet. He has gained convention championships, gained within the NCAA Event and raised the usual at each program by integrity, empathy and appreciation. We all know that Ryan will proceed to construct sustainable nationwide success that can take our subsequent step towards profitable a nationwide championship and we stay up for having Lucia and the boys as a part of Ram Nation.”  

McLaughlin has a longstanding relationship with Odom and, per sources, made overtures earlier this week, as soon as it turned a chance that Penn State might lure away Rhoades. Odom was a scorching commodity coming off Utah State’s event look. He held off on a suggestion from South Florida as soon as VCU signaled curiosity. 

Odom is VCU’s its sixth coach in 17 years. The earlier 5 (Jeff Capel, Anthony Grant, Shaka Sensible, Will Wade, Mike Rhoades) all left for power-conference jobs after making the NCAA Event.

Odom made his title in teaching at UMBC, when in 2018 he guided the Retrievers to the primary No. 16 seed-over-No. 1 upset in NCAA Event historical past towards Virginia. Odom spent the previous two seasons at Utah State, going 44-25. He took the Aggies to this yr’s NCAA Event, incomes a No. 10 seed. 

Odom is 170-106 in his profession. The rent is sensible on two fronts, the primary being that Odom was all the time anticipated to ultimately transfer again East, the place he is been in basketball his total life, aside from his transient stint at Utah State. The second being his particular ties to the greater-Virginia area. Odom performed at Virginia-based Hampden-Sydney (a Division III program) within the early-to-mid Nineteen Nineties, then labored as an assistant at American College and Virginia Tech from 2000-2010. The 48-year-old is 158-100 in his profession.