With the 2020 NCAA tourney tipping off next month, we will spend this month taking a walk down memory lane with a choice collection of players/coaches who are celebrating an awesome anniversary this year. From some game-winning FTs in the 1955 tourney (65th anniversary) through a 17-PT comeback win in the 2015 1st 4 (5th anniversary), these legends have all carved out a little piece of history in past Marches. We continue our series with Dave Odom, the 1995 national COY as head coach at Wake Forest and father of the only coach to lead a #16-seed to an upset of a #1 seed in NCAA tourney history. He made 11 straight postseason appearances in Winston-Salem, then took his talents to South Carolina where he won back-to-back NIT titles in 2005/2006. HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to chat with Dave about the 25th anniversary of coaching Tim Duncan in the 1995 NCAA tourney and being an assistant coach on the wrong side of 1 of the biggest upsets in college basketball history.
At Goldsboro High School you were captain of the football/basketball/baseball teams, and at Guilford College you played QB for 3 years and basketball for 4 years: which sport did you enjoy the most, and which 1 were you best at? I enjoyed whatever sport was in season since I liked them all equally well. I always felt like I was best at baseball: I was a pretty good left-handed hitter.
In 1976 you became an assistant at Wake Forest and your team made it to the Elite 8 before losing to eventual national champion Marquette: what was it like to coach against Al McGuire, and could you tell that Marquette was going to win it all? Anytime you do something for the 1st time it is exciting and that year we won the “Big 4” tourney in Greensboro (which also included Duke/UNC/NC State). I got there after coaching various high school sports for 14 years…and realized that I was not any more excited for the NCAA tourney than I was for my high school championship games. It was a strange feeling. The thing I remember the most about playing Marquette is that we had never seen a triangle-and-2 defense before and we had no answer for that. I came out of that game with a great deal of respect for McGuire and his staff. I actually thought that we were the better team and that we could have gone all the way if we had beat them, but we were just not prepared.
In 1982 you became an assistant at Virginia under coach Terry Holland, but your #1-ranked team had a 5-PT loss to Chaminade in 1 of the biggest upsets in NCAA history: how on earth did you lose that game, and what was the feeling like in your locker room afterwards? It was just the end of a difficult week. We started out by playing the 1st-ever game involving the college 3-PT line at Duke: the arc was only about 17 feet from the basket. A few days later we played Georgetown in DC, which was the 1st game ever played on TNT. Soon after that we flew to Tokyo to play Houston: Ralph Sampson did not play because he was dehydrated but we beat them anyway. Then we played Utah, beat them (again without Sampson), and flew back through Hawaii to break the trip up. We had a great practice the morning of the Chaminade game and thought that we would have an easy game. I think we were fatigued but give Chaminade credit for playing well and making their FTs. There were several media in the locker room and the only player who talked to them was Rick Carlisle: some of his teammates got mad at him for doing so. The next day we were at the airport and the media asked Terry to comment on the game. He told me to go over and tell them that he had no comment: I told him we would have to say something but he said that nobody would believe anything we said because the result of the game was so preposterous!
In the 1984 NCAA tourney Othell Wilson scored 17 PTS and made a jumper with 6 seconds left in a 1-PT win over Iona, then Carlisle scored 12 PTS including a baseline jumper with 4 seconds left in a 2-PT OT win over Arkansas: how was your blood pressure doing by that point, and what is the secret to drawing up a game-winning play? I have never had problems with the stress of the game because I have been through so many of them. I think the secret to drawing up the right play is to know your personnel and their abilities. In most cases you are not going to trick anyone. On offense, you just have to know what your best player can do and then give him the confidence to do whatever he needs to do. On the other end of the court, just call your best defense.
In 1989 you became head coach at Wake Forest, and after inheriting a team that had 4 straight losing seasons you were named ACC COY 3 times in a 5-year span from 1991-1995: were you concerned that it would take a while to right the ship, and how were you able to rebuild so quickly? I knew that it would be difficult to move the program in the right direction. The ACC is always good but the decade of the 1990s featured some of the best teams ever. We tried to concentrate on recruiting guys from North Carolina and the 1st year we got Rodney Rogers, which showed that we could recruit with the best in the ACC and were serious about winning. After Rodney was Randolph Childress, who said he was coming because we had signed Rodney. We beat Duke during the Bobby Hurley/Christian Laettner years, and UNC/Maryland were also excellent teams. You could feel the momentum growing and I felt very good about where we were after only 2-3 years.
Take me through the 1993 NCAA tourney:
Rogers scored 26 PTS in a win over Chattanooga and 33 PTS in a 6-PT win over IA: was he just “in the zone” that entire weekend? He was coming of age quickly because he was so powerful/skilled. He was also the most popular guy on our team so it was easy to coach him and give him room to improve.
Travis Ford scored 26 PTS/10-11 FG in a win by Kentucky: was your team’s defense lacking that night or was Ford just unstoppable? I think that both Ford/Jamal Mashburn (23 PTS/8-13 FG) came out and just made every single shot. Looking back on it, we were probably too young to be in that kind of game that soon and it showed. That night was their night and we were beaten early (the Wildcats led 60-26 at halftime).
In 1995 you were named national COY: what did it mean to you to win such an outstanding honor? I was totally surprised by that. To say I was honored is the understatement of the year.
What are your memories of the 1995 ACC tourney title game (Randolph Childress scored 37 PTS including the tourney-winning jump shot with 4 seconds left despite a dislocated finger in a 2-PT OT win over UNC)? We had split with them during the regular season by winning on each other’s home court: each of us had a great sophomore class. We should have beaten them in Winston-Salem but Jerry Stackhouse made an improbable shot to beat us. It was doomsday in our locker room afterwards but we felt calm about it. When we beat them in Chapel Hill it was definitely Tim Duncan’s coming-out party with 25 PTS/12 REB. In the ACC tourney Randolph was not just having the performance of his life: he was having the performance of the ACC tourney’s life and broke Lenny Rosenbluth’s tourney scoring record. I will never forget his game-winning shot. I have seen a photo of that shot 100 times: you cannot find anyone in the crowd whose eyes are not riveted on that jumper. All 4 of his teammates were open, but everyone knew that he was going to take the shot:
Take me through the 1995 NCAA tourney:
Duncan scored 21 PTS in a win over NC A&T and 25 PTS in a 5-PT win over St. Louis: where does he rank among the best players you ever coached, and what made him such a dominant player? As Tim grew as a player our team grew more powerful/confident. I coached 2 of the very best 7-footers to ever play college basketball in Duncan/Sampson. Tim was fabulous to work with, to coach, and to know. In terms of skill I think the 2 big men were equal. Duncan would be totally disappointed if we did not win a game.
Randy Rutherford scored 23 PTS in a 5-PT win by Oklahoma State: how close did you come to winning that game, and what was the feeling like in your locker room afterwards? Right after the ACC tourney Childress separated his shoulder so he had a difficult time playing through it. That game came down to the last possession and the ball got knocked out of his hands. If we could have gotten through that game I think that we could have made a run at the title.
What are your memories of the 1996 ACC tourney (Duncan had 27 PTS/22 REB/4 BLK in a 1-PT win over Georgia Tech)? That was 1 of the best games we played all season: I honestly thought that we had the best team in the country. We were up 18 PTS at halftime but Tony Rutland tore his ACL right before we went to the locker room: it was so devastating that we did not even tell the rest of the team. We won the game after Duncan blocked Stephon Marbury with 3 seconds left. In the postgame press conference a writer asked Coach Bobby Cremins if he thought that Rutland’s injury made any difference…and Cremins said he did not even notice that Rutland sat out the 2nd half.
Take me through the 1996 NCAA tourney:
Ricky Peral (who averaged 7.9 PPG during his college career) scored 14 PTS in a win over Louisiana-Monroe and 16 PTS in a 3-PT win over Texas: how was he able to play so well in the spotlight after being a role player for his entire career? Ricky was more in the flow than you might think. He was a great rebounder and a better defender. That was when they started to double-team Duncan and Ricky just took advantage.
Duncan had 27 PTS/13 REB and DeJuan Wheat missed a 10-foot shot with 5 seconds left in a 1-PT win over Louisville: did you think that Wheat’s shot was going in, and was your team excited for a chance at revenge in the next game against the Wildcats after losing to them in 1993? We had Rusty LaRue playing PG, who was anything but a PG. We were playing in Minnesota at the Metrodome, and the entire stadium was packed with fans from the state of Kentucky.
Tony Delk scored 25 PTS in a win by eventual champion Kentucky: what was it like to coach against Rick Pitino, and where does that Wildcat team rank among the best you have ever faced? The thing that beat us was that they doubled Duncan in the post with their other post guy, which we had never seen before. We did not figure that out until the 2nd half.
In 1999 you won a silver medal as an assistant coach for Team USA at the Men’s Junior World Championships in Portugal after a 7-PT loss to Spain in the gold medal game: how devastating was that loss, and which of your players impressed you the most (Nick Collison/Casey Jacobsen/other)? Spain had Pau Gasol/Juan Carlos Navarro so they were an amazing team even though we did not realize it at the time. We had a great team as well but they had a lot of fans in the crowd in Portugal. I definitely started to play closer attention to foreign players after that tourney.
You won 3 NIT titles and finished runner-up once in a 7-year span from 2000-2006: how were you able to motivate your team to play hard after missing out on the NCAA tourney, and what did it mean to you to win a title? It is all about how you approach it. Nobody goes into the season hoping to win the NIT: that is unheard of. When the goals that you set at the start of the year are not reached, it is up to the coach to establish new goals and then challenge his team to reach them. I felt that the NIT did not start until you won your 1st game so we put a lot of emphasis on winning the 1st game: after that your players start to get excited. I never tried to fool my team into thinking the NIT was as good as THE national title, even though it was A national title.
You retired from coaching in 2008 and currently serve as tourney chair of the Maui Invitational: how do you like the job, and what do you hope to do in the future? You could not have a better job as a retired former coach! It is challenging but keeps me close to the game. I am also doing some radio/TV and have gotten to work with Coach Mike Krzyzewski and the US national team.
Your sons Lane/Ryan each went into coaching: how proud are you of their success, and what did you teach them about how to be a great coach? Their mother and I tried to talk them out of it but we failed. Lane has been working with high school kids, running some AAU tourneys, and doing individual instruction. Ryan is in college ball and doing very well as a recruiter/coach. We are extremely proud of both of them and they are fine young men.