After a loss to Georgia Tech in the ACC Tournament on Wednesday, Virginia basketball enters its most pivotal offseason in over a decade. For the first time since 2009, the Cavaliers are looking for a new head coach.
After the season-ending loss, UVa announced that interim head coach Ron Sanchez will not be retained, ending the most successful era in program history. Here are three options for who could be the next Virginia basketball head coach.
VCU head coach Ryan Odom
Odom’s connection to the Virginia program goes back decades. His father, Dave Odom, was an assistant on the Cavaliers for the majority of the 1980s, appearing in the NCAA Tournament five times and reaching the Final Four in 1984. Ryan Odom was a ball boy for the program those days, getting to watch UVA legend Ralph Sampson up close.
Near the end of the decade, then-Cavaliers head coach Terry Holland pushed for Dave Odom to be the next head coach of the program upon Holland’s retirement. However, Odom signed on to be at the helm of Wake Forest, where he won two ACC Tournaments alongside future NBA superstar Tim Duncan.
Over 30 years later, Ryan Odom has emerged as one of the best mid-major coaches in the country. He coached at UMBC from 2016-21, winning 20 games three times and becoming the first 16 seed to beat a one seed, upsetting Virginia in 2018. He spent two years at Utah State, winning 26 games and making the NCAA Tournament in 2023. Now in his second year at VCU, the Rams are 25-6 and the one seed in the A-10 Tournament.
Like Virginia the past decade-plus, Odom’s teams play slowly, consistently ranking in the 200s or lower in possessions per game. However, while Virginia’s offense has become stagnant and tough to watch at times over the past few years, Odom’s is very modern, with a lot of spacing and rapid ball movement. 47.2% of VCU’s shots this year have come from behind the arc, 29th in the country.
Odom would also modernize the defense. Under former head coach Tony Bennett, UVa’s packline defense was all about forcing difficult shots, particularly in the lane. The Rams rank 33rd in the country in steals per game (8.4), 29th in the country in steal percentage (12.2%) and sixth in extra scoring chance per game (6.4). VCU also ranks seventh in the country in points allowed per game and fifth in defensive efficiency. Odom wants to get his teams forcing the ball out and getting in transition, but is also fine playing in the halfcourt as well.
Odom has paid his dues at the mid-major level, and the program that taught his father how to be a great coach might be the perfect place for him to get his first power conference opportunity.
Drake head coach Ben McCollum
McCollum is the new kid on the block. He won four national championships at the D-II school Northwest Missouri State and made the jump to D-I this year, taking over Drake. In his first year with the Bulldogs, he guided them to 30 wins and their third straight NCAA Tournament appearance.
Defensively, Drake has played like VCU, but even more extreme. The Bulldogs are one of three teams to play at a slower tempo than Virginia. They ranked atop the country in steal percentage (14.3%) and 23rd in steals per game (8.8). Offensively, Drake doesn’t shoot a lot of threes but it does shoot well, knocking down two-pointers at at a 54.6% clip, good for 58th in the country. The Bulldogs’ 1.11 points per possession ranks 44th in the country. McCollum is at the head of one of the most efficient teams in the country.
However, it’s unknown if McCollum can really recruit at the D-I level right now. Four of the best players on Drake this year — graduate student guard Isaiah Jackson, junior guards Bennett Stirtz and Mitch Mascari and junior forward Daniel Abreu — all came from Northwest Missouri State. Without as easy an access to his former home in the future, it might be harder for McCollum to recruit well and create good teams.
Going from D-II to mid-major to a top-tier ACC school in less than two years would be a massive leap, and a huge risk for a program replacing a legend like Virginia is. There definitely is a future at the D-I level for McCollum, and if he keeps having seasons like this year he’ll get a power conference gig at some point. It’s just that Virginia might not be ready for a swing that big right now.
Vanderbilt head coach Mark Byington
Byington knows how to build programs and win quickly. In seven years at Georgia Southern from 2013-20, he won 20 games four times. In his first year at JMU in 2020-21, the Dukes went from being one of the worst teams in the country to finishing regular season co-champions. Then, in 2023-24, JMU was a buzzsaw in the Sun Belt, winning its conference tournament and dominating Wisconsin the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
In his first season at Vanderbilt this year, Byington took a Commodores team that was projected to finish at the bottom of the conference, won 20 games and will likely make the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2017. Vanderbilt beat five ranked teams and more than held its own in the loaded SEC.
Byington’s teams are fast-paced and aggressive, particularly defensively. He would allow UVa to retain some of its defensive identity, but it would be a different style of defense. He also knows how to bring in transfers, as almost every player on this Vanderbilt team and many key players at JMU were brought in via the portal.
Byington also has ties to the Commonwealth and the Cavaliers program. In addition to being the head coach at JMU in Harrisonburg, he’s from Salem, was Virginia’s Director of Basketball Operations in 2004-05 and a Virginia Tech assistant coach in 2012-13.
While he would be a great pick to be the next head coach in Charlottesville, the timing here is unfortunate. If Byington were still at JMU, he might be the favorite to land this position. However, given the season he just had in the toughest conference in the country, it’s unlikely he’ll leave Nashville after one season.