As Ryan Odom’s press conference approached on Monday afternoon, the court at JPJ where the event was to take place felt like a big basketball reunion. There were a ton of familiar faces, from former Cavaliers Ralph Sampson and Sean Singletary, to Odom’s colleagues and mentors, including his former college coach Tony Shaver. Nearly the entire UVa basketball team was on hand as well.

Monday’s event felt like much more than a press conference. It felt like a homecoming. And that’s exactly what it was for Odom, who grew up around the UVa basketball program. Odom’s father, former Wake Forest and South Carolina head coach Dave Odom, was an assistant under Terry Holland in the 1980’s, moving to Charlottesville after a stint as the head coach at ECU.

“I had no idea as a third grader what a joy it was going to be and how charmed of a life I was getting ready to live,” UVa’s new coach said of moving to Charlottesville in 1982.

Odom eventually became a ball boy, and was around the UVa program as he grew up. He fell in love with the game in that time in Charlottesville, and went on to not only play the game in college, but build a life in the game. And like so many Cavalier fans, his passion for the game started at University Hall, which once stood just across the street from where he delivered his remarks on Monday.

It’s certainly a relatable experience for this writer. The first real live sporting event I ever attended was at University Hall, watching Curtis Staples and the Hoos take on Florida State in a long-since-forgotten ACC clash. But that night, February 4th, 1998, got me hooked on live sports and more specifically UVa sports. Nearly three decades later, here we are. And how many people reading this have a similar story? It makes Odom’s reflections on Monday all the more relatable.

Odom’s formative basketball experiences go back more than a decade further, and because his dad was on staff, he literally grew up in the program.

“(Holland) allowed me to walk with Dad and him to the games,” Odom reflected on his time growing up in Charlottesville. “So we would walk across that bridge, go into the well, and then they would go at it with Dean Smith and Lefty Driesell and Jim Valvano, and a young Coach K. and all the greats that coached in the ACC.”

“For me, it was just an amazing, amazing childhood, and I'm thankful for Coach Holland, I'm thankful for the decision that you made to bring us up here, Dad. And, Mom, you for agreeing to go along on this ride.”

Odom didn’t get this job because he grew up in Charlottesville, though. It has to be about more than that. In fact, we wrote a longform piece on this website a few weeks ago about coaching hires, and one of our conclusions was that hires made because of where a person is from or what school they went to, rather than what they've accomplished, seem more likely to fail.

But Odom is both accomplished as a college basketball coach and has a passion for the place. And those hires work out quite often.

Odom has been an excellent head coach at three D1 stops. He led all three programs to the NCAA Tournament, won a pair of regular-season conference titles, two more conference tournament titles, and engineered the biggest upset win in NCAA Tournament history.

That success, in addition to his obvious passion he has for the program he now leads, makes him an obvious fit for this role.

“As the search came to a conclusion, there was one deeply rooted value remaining to address,” Carla Williams said in her remarks on Monday. “Who can we entrust with the legacy of this program that has been shaped by the blood, sweat, and tears of so many who made this one of the nation's premier men's basketball programs? Who could we entrust with that legacy? Who could we trust with Virginia men's basketball?”

Those are weighty questions. The UVa program saw a lot of success when Odom was in Charlottesville in his youth, but went through a true renaissance in recent years under Tony Bennett, who led the program to twice as many ACC Tournament titles as they’d won before his time, and the school’s first national title. So Williams and the other stakeholders who went through the selection process had to make sure they got it right, because of what Coach Bennett and his program mean to so many around the university and community.

Odom earned that trust in the search process, and was ultimately the pick. Williams went on to describe her newest hire as “A proven winner as a coach, an amazing person, and I know he looks like a cool customer on the sidelines, but he is a fierce competitor, who routinely leads his teams to championships.”

Odom also smartly acknowledged UVa’s success under Bennett, saying of his predecessor “We're all in awe of him in general and the man that he is, the coach that he is, the person that he is.” He also acknowledged the current team by having them stand for applause at the beginning of his remarks, and applauding the former coaches for the work they put in to make UVa basketball so successful over the past decade.

“The staff that coached here for that many years, the people that gave everything to this place, I'm so thankful for everything that they did over the course of the 15 years together,” Odom said.

UVa has entrusted Odom with the responsibility to lead the UVa basketball program. He’s a good fit for that responsibility, in part at least, because this program means something to him. It’s not just another job. On Monday Odom was asked about the picture of him as a kid that has circulated online in recent weeks where Odom was in UVa gear playing basketball at U-Hall. Odom’s father still had that photo in his office, and Ryan found a creative way to work it into his interview with UVa’s administration, and show how much the program means to him.

“So little known fact, but in the interview process when I came to meet President Ryan and Carla that day, the first -- one of the first questions was why Virginia? So I had Lucy print those two pictures. So that was -- I just put them right in front of them. Why Virginia? That's why Virginia.”

After the press conference, Odom gave the media a few more minutes of his time for questions and was asked about how difficult it was to leave VCU after two years there. Odom made it clear that he was happy to return to VCU if UVa wasn’t an option, but the draw of coming to Charlottesville was ultimately something he couldn’t pass up.

“I was not leaving for other places,” Odom said. “This was the place.”.

The timing worked out, and Bennett’s retirement coincided with Odom’s rise at VCU and made him a logical fit for the suddenly open role.

“Sometimes we wonder in life -- the door closes on you, and we wonder, why on earth did that happen? Usually later on you figured out why that door closed on you. I'm so glad this door opened,” Odom said, drawing laughs from the crowd.

“I walk through that door with enthusiasm,” he continued. “I walk through that door with passion, with humility, with a desire to help continue to build this place, and that's really what it's all about to me. This place has existed long before Ryan Odom. This place has existed before Tony Bennett.”

Monday’s introduction made it clear that Odom will be able to connect and relate to UVa’s basketball past. And he made clear his reverence for it’s recent past under Bennett and the desire to build a bridge between that era and his own. But the success or failure of his tenure will be determined, largely, by how he builds new UVa basketball history now that he’s back in town.

Odom will have to connect with new faces already around the program, and attract top talent to Grounds, and then coach those players to deliver results. There should be optimism in the fact that he’s found a way to do that at three programs already, in addition to the fact that hours after his hire was announced, four-star point guard Chance Mallory recommitted to the program. Odom is clearly able to make lasting connections with players, too, which should be a good sign. VCU guard Max Shulga was on hand for Monday’s press conference. The 2025 A-10 Player of the Year followed Odom from VCU and was on hand for his coronation in Charlottesville.

“It says a lot that you're here, Buddy. I appreciate that,” Odom said when pointing Shulga out to the crowd at JPJ. And he’s right, Shulga’s presence, along with the presence of so many others from Odom’s coaching stops and even further back, says something.

UVa has faith in Odom to lead the program, to represent the orange and blue in a way that fits the core principles of the University’s athletic programs, but also to win.

“We began this journey in October with a clear understanding of and an appreciation for its significance. Hiring a coach that fits UVA, a coach with character, integrity, and emphasis on academics and care for our players -- all of these traits will always be non-negotiable at UVa,” Williams said in her opening remarks.

“But there was another foundational goal that guided every decision along the way: winning championships.”

Ryan Odom looked at home on the JPJ floor on Monday afternoon, in his introduction to the UVa program and fanbase. Now he can turn his focus to putting a winning product on that floor, just across the street from where he fell in love with the game as a kid.