Ryan Odom interviewed for the ECU job when Joe Dooley was hired. At the time he was the coach of UMBC having just become the first 16 seed to win a game in the NCAA tournament. I'll be the first to admit I preferred Dooley at the time, but in retrospect this was a mistake. It may have even been a mistake last season not giving him a call to see if there was any interest. He's currently making 791k dollars at Utah State and ECU was paying Dooley 1 million. Perhaps it would have been enough to get him back east, but probably not considering he would have had to get out of his contract.
Utah State is currently 31st ranked in NET and should be an NCAA team. Last season they were 65th in NET under him as well. He took over a program at Utah State that was 47th in NET the season before he got there. Here is Odom's overall record as a head coach dating back to his time as an interim coach at Charlotte and D2.
To be honest I was a little skeptical of his recruiting at the time. He seems like he's a great X&O coach, maybe even elite taking a 7-25 team at UMBC to 21-10 his first season. The team that he took to the NCAA at UMBC was mostly the key players left to him at UMBC. He also kept Utah State basically at the same level in his first year even after they lost an NBA player. That's pretty impressive.
He's clearly a good coach, but at Utah State 3 of the top players he added that have helped him get to this level, were his best players at UMBC. That pipeline will soon run dry soon. He did add a good transfer from St Joe's last year that had averaged 17ppg, 6rpg before in the A10. He's one of the top players on this Utah State team averaging 13ppg 5rpg. That's at least a good sign for Utah State. He's always shown a willingness to use the portal, even taking two former ECU pirates while at UMBC.
What would have been interesting in retrospect is seeing what Odom could have done with the talent that was left by Lebo particularly Gardner. He wasn't the only one though with under rated talent like Seth LeDay, Flemings and Shawn Williams. With Odom's coaching history there is no way I see them finishing 258th in NET in a hypothetical 1st year with him. No way I believe that with Gardner and LeDay.
You would think in the AAC Odom could have recruited at a higher level. Even if Odom had only added the same guys he did at UMBC like Horvath, Eythle-Rock, and Akin to that team ECU is probably a top 100 team with in a few years. His last season at UMBC they were 136th NET. Those three players were clearly good enough to help Utah State these past two years as well. Another player, Keondre Kennedy who I wished ECU tried to recruit last offseason and listed in the transfer section this summer is leading a top 100 UNCG team this year as well. Even just Kennedy, Akin and the St Joe transfer would probably be a top 100 team this season.
Here are the RPI/NET rankings of those teams
I think he would have done very well with Gardner. Gardner could still have transfered, but I do believe he would have had some chance to keep him these 5 years. Players seem to like Odom and no one transfered at UMBC when they could have. Three followed him to Utah State. If ECU was a top 100 team with Gardner that would have helped keep him as well. I think Odom would have won a lot here and ECU screwed that one up.
