Ryan Odom is leaving Utah State

Earlier this week, it appeared Utah State Aggies head men’s basketball coach Ryan Odom would be departing to take the same position at USF.

Odom is indeed leaving, but for a different head coaching job.

CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander first reported Wednesday that the Virginia Commonwealth Rams will be hiring Odom.

“A deal is not yet done, but the transition is not expected to take long,” Norlander wrote. “VCU athletic director Ed McLaughlin has a longstanding relationship with Odom and, per sources, made overtures earlier this week.”

A few minutes later, Stadium’s Jeff Goodman reported the same.

Indeed, the transition happened quickly, as VCU formally announced the hiring of Odom on Wednesday afternoon.

The reports of the hire coming to fruition came a few hours after Goodman and ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported early Wednesday morning that VCU’s Mike Rhoades was on track to become the next head coach at Penn State, with Goodman adding that Odom would be “the frontrunner” to replace Rhoades at Virginia Commonwealth if that deal went through.

Goodman noted that Odom “has been holding off South Florida a bit in case VCU opened.”

While a move to USF would have sent Odom closer to his North Carolina roots than he is now in Utah, he has deep ties to the DMV area — Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia.

He was an assistant at American University in D.C. from 2000-2003 (where he got to know McLaughlin), then at Virginia Tech from 2003-2010.

In 2016 after stops at two North Carolina schools, Odom was hired as the head coach at UMBC in Maryland, where he was until 2021 when he left for Utah State.

Under Odom, UMBC made history in 2018, becoming the first 16-seed to ever beat a 1-seed in the NCAA Tournament when it thrashed Virginia by 20.

Odom is 44-25 in two seasons at Utah State, which included an at-large berth in the NCAA Tournament this year.

VCU won the Atlantic 10 Conference this season under Rhoades and was a 12-seed in the NCAA Tournament, where it lost to Saint Mary’s in the first round.

The Rams famously made the Final Four in 2011 as an 11-seed.

There is not yet an indication of who Utah State may turn to in replacing Odom. Each of his assistant coaches came to Utah State with him from UMBC, and it is not known if they will follow him to VCU.

Utah State is in a unique position as it looks for Odom’s replacement, as university president Noelle Cockett is slated to retire but not until July 1, and the athletic department has an interim athletic director in Jerry Bovee, who assumed that position last November after John Hartwell resigned (Hartwell is now the athletic director at the University of Louisiana at Monroe).

In between the initial reports Wednesday of Odom’s interest in VCU and the reports that a deal will be done soon, ESPN’s Jeff Borzello reported that USF is expected to hire Kennesaw State’s Amir Abdur-Rahim to be its next head coach after he led a team that won one game in the 2019-20 season to the NCAA Tournament this season.

As a 14-seed, Kennesaw State was tied with 3-seed Xavier with 18 seconds remaining in their first-round game before losing by five.