RALEIGH — Both Virginia and NC State made changes to their men’s basketball programs during the offseason, with the Cavaliers hiring Ryan Odom and the Wolfpack bringing in Will Wade to run the show. While the two coaches had different paths to their first head coaching positions in the ACC, they shared some common threads, the most notable being stints at VCU.
Both Wade and Odom led the Rams as head coaches at different points of their respective careers, with Odom leaving the program to become the head coach at Virginia this season. For the first time, the two former Rams will butt heads in the ACC, with the Cavaliers headed to Raleigh for a Saturday matinee bout against the Pack.
Following different paths
Odom’s arrival at Virginia marked the fulfillment of a childhood dream. He grew up on the sidelines in Charlottesville as his father, Dave Odom, was an assistant for the Cavaliers for nearly a decade. Ryan roamed the baselines and sidelines as a ball boy while his dad coached.
“Every day that I walk in there, I kind of have to pinch myself because it is a special place,” Odom said. “But it’s the first place that was in my heart before I came to work there. The memories from ’82 to ’89, you know, they’re real things. They’re real memories from my childhood.”
Wade followed an unorthodox and controversial road to reach the Wolfpack, possibly the perfect landing spot for him. He got his start in the Ivy League, coaching under Tommy Amaker at Harvard in the late 2000s before making his way to VCU. Wade joined Shaka Smart’s staff for the Rams’ Final Four run in 2011, a group of coaches that has gone on to populate the various tiers of the coaching ranks in a way comparable to the Mike Shanahan coaching tree in the NFL…