UMBC's upset is the culmination of the long-struggling program's rapid rise

Senior writer

Sat, Mar 17, 2018, 6:29 AM

The most unfathomable aspect of the biggest upset in NCAA tournament history wasn’t UMBC’s 20-point margin of victory.

It’s that the Retrievers of all programs were the one who accomplished something 135 other No. 16 seeds could not.

When coach Ryan Odom took over at UMBC in 2016, he inherited a program that had endured seven straight 20-loss seasons. The Retrievers averaged 24 losses per year during that stretch, never cracked the top 300 in Ken Pomeroy’s efficiency ratings and finished among the bottom two in the America East conference all but once.

The turnaround that Odom has executed in a mere two years is nothing short of remarkable.

UMBC won 21 games in Odom’s debut season, finished above .500 in conference play and reached the semifinals of the CIT postseason tournament. The Retrievers (25-10) took another giant step forward this season, finishing second to Vermont in the America East standings and snapping a 23-game losing streak to the Catamounts in last Saturday’s America East title game on Jairus Lyle’s go-ahead 3-pointer at the buzzer.

One reason for Odom’s success is his predecessor actually left him a surprising amount of talent. Lyles, who transferred from VCU after his freshman season, has been UMBC’s leading scorer each of the past three seasons. Fellow starters Joe Sherburne and Jourdan Grant were also already part of the program.

Credit Odom and his staff for teaching Grant to make better decisions with the ball and developing Sherburne and Lyle into more consistent perimeter shooters. Odom also instilled a greater emphasis on defense and sprinkled in some new talent to fill in holes, most notably junior college transfer KJ Maura.

Maybe Odom’s greatest contribution was persuading UMBC players that it was possible to win at the school. The son of former Wake Forest and South Carolina coach Dave Odom hung pictures of UMBC’s 2008 NCAA tournament team in the locker room as a reminder that it could be done.

“Every day when they walked in that locker room, we wanted them to look at [photos],” Odom told the Athletic earlier this month. “And maybe it’s just subconscious. Like, it’s been done here, we can do it again. It’s just going to be what happens.”

The culmination of UMBC’s transformation arrived Friday night when the Retrievers stunned a Virginia team that for the past four months had been the best team in college basketball. The Cavaliers won the ACC by four games and validated that with an ACC tournament title, but for at least one night, they were no match for UMBC.

In 1982, Division II Chaminade authored what is often called the biggest upset in college basketball history when it defeated Ralph Sampson-led Virginia.

This was bigger. This was the NCAA tournament.

A UMBC program long synonymous with losing is now known for something else entirely: As the slingshot-wielding No. 16 seed that finally made history.