Virginia Hires Vcu Coach Ryan Odom, Whose Father Was A Cavaliers Assistant

Virginia athletic director Carla Williams is hoping the obvious choice was the right one.

Williams named VCU coach Ryan Odom - whose father was a Cavaliers assistant and who handed the program its most historic and crushing defeat in the 2018 NCAA Tournament - as the full-time replacement to Tony Bennett on Saturday.

Odom's season ended Thursday with a first-round NCAA Tournament loss to BYU . The Rams are the third team he's taken into March Madness, leading UMBC and Utah State there in his previous coaching stops.

At UMBC, he made college basketball history, with Virginia on the wrong end of it. Odom's Retrievers became the first No. 16-seed to upset a 1-seed when they routed the heavily favored Cavaliers 74-54 in 2018.

Seven years later, Odom is being tasked with getting Virginia - which recovered to win the 2019 national championship - back into contention for No. 1 seeds.