Ryan Odom updates media on his team’s preparations for 2025-26

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — The Atlantic Coast Conference of Ryan Odom’s childhood is long gone.

Back then, ACC men’s basketball teams played home-and-home series every season with each of their counterparts in the league. The conference has expanded multiple times since then and now has 18 members for basketball, and the schedule has changed dramatically too.

The ACC released its schedule for 2025-26 this week—with starting times, broadcast designations and some dates yet to be finalized—and each team will play 18 conference games. Virginia has home-and-home series with only two opponents (Virginia Tech and NC State) and won’t play Clemson during the regular season.

Odom, who’s in his first year as the Cavaliers’ head coach, said the ACC schedule poses challenges for him and his staff, particularly in this era of rampant player movement.

“You’re not playing everybody twice,” Odom said Wednesday during a media availability at John Paul Jones Arena.

After playing Virginia Tech and NC State the first time, the Wahoos will “have a deep knowledge of them and have on-the-court experience against them for that second game,” Odom said. “But all the others, it’s almost as if you’re playing non-conference games, because you play them one time. You get one shot at them regardless of whether it’s on your court or somewhere else. And so the staff really has to be dialed-in, in terms of the preparation and the scouting and how we deliver that to the team to help them get ready to put their best foot forward for that particular game. And so you use the non -conference to help prepare you for what you know is going to be a really tough conference play.”

Virginia’s schedule includes two exhibition games that are open to the public: Oct. 16 against Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tenn., and Oct. 24 against Villanova at JPJ.

“We know we’re gonna be challenged [by the Wildcats] and we hope to challenge them as well,” Odom said. “Same thing with the Vanderbilt game. We are in a new era, and I’m for adding more games, more like the NBA in terms of preseason games to give our guys a chance … A lot of these kids now are a little bit older, and so they’re a little bit…