Madness still lingers at UMBC after upset
Retrievers’ basketball camp grows in popularity along with historic men’s team
The question was ridiculous — “You’re famous?” — but Brandon Horvath, a decidedly nonfamous person, considered it anyway.
At the UMBC men’s basketball team’s day camp last month, small campers approached the rising sophomore forward from West River. He wore team gear, and he was tall, so they asked him whether he’d been in March Madness.
Technically, yes. He sat out the Retrievers’ momentous first-round NCAA tournament upset of No. 1 seed Virginia, but in their second-round loss to Kansas State, he’d grabbed a rebound. On national television. If being famous in 2018 is as simple as running a popular YouTube vlog or posting a viral tweet, was he not famous, too?
“It’s like, ‘I guess I am, really, if you know who we are,’ ” Horvath (Southern) said, chuckling. “It’s pretty crazy. Little kids and people know who we are. I laugh. It’s just funny.”
Around him was proof of UMBC’s skyrocketing Q Rating. His coach, Ryan Odom, was earning nearly double his previous base salary, a reward for setting a school record for wins. In a few days, the No. 16 seed Retrievers’ 74-54 win over the Cavaliers would be nominated for “Best Moment” in the 2018 ESPY Awards. And there sure were a lot more kids in UMBC T-shirts running around the Retriever Activities Center’s basketball court than there used to be.
When Odomtook over as coach in April 2016, there was no basketball-specific camp at the school to inherit, only an all-sports activity camp. That first summer, he estimated about 30 to 40 kids came for a week of instruction.
“Most of these kids are from right around here,” Odom said. “We want them
to experience UMBC and all it has to offer and certainly experience men’s basketball and be around our players. It’s grown exponentially each year.”
Camp membership hasn’t had quite the growth spurt of, say, the @UMBCAthletics Twitter account (over 89,000 followers total, as of this week), but it’s still going strong. In the summer of 2017, after a 14-win improvement and UMBC’s first win in postseason history, about 60 to 70 kids came out.
This year, Odom got about 80 for last month’s first weeklong session, and as many as 150 might come out for this month’s second sesion.
“When the program gets better like that and they see the success that we’ve had, [parents] feel comfortable sending their kids to come learn how we play and to give them the fundamentals to one day be in the same situation as us,” graduated guard Jourdan Grant (Archbishop Spalding) said. “That’s definitely the ideal goal for these kids at this age. It’s always, ‘I want to be an NBA basketball player,’ ‘I want to play in the NCAA tournament,’ so it’s good to see that their dreams can come true at any moment.”
But Grant won’t be around to help the Retrievers strive for a worthy sequel next season. Neither will graduated stars Jairus Lyles and K.J. Maura. There is enough talent to remain near the top of the America East Conference. But as for the willpower, well, that is not a question to be answered in the summertime.
Last season, the Retrievers worked “insanely hard,” Horvath said, to make it to the league final and beat top-seeded Vermont. Now they have to summon even more energy, an even deeper focus. How do you go about making “Rocky II” when fans still want to talk about how much of a thrill the original was?
“We’ll never forget that moment, obviously,” Horvath said. “But our weight coach was probably the first person that was like, ‘Yeah, we won, but that was three months From left, UMBC’s Daniel Akin, Brandon Horvath and coach Ryan Odom cheer against Coppin State last season. “Little kids and people know who we are,” Horvath said of the attention the Retrievers have received since their NCAA tournament upset. “It’s just funny.” ago, so who really cares?’ He’s like, ‘We need to work even harder, because obviously, we have a target on our back now. People know who we are, and people want to play us, and they want to beat us.’ So we’ve got to get ready for that.”
Odom was ready for the question, too. It was not the first time he has been asked about avoiding a post-March hangover, nor it will be the last. But at least the narrative is changing. For the first two decades of his coaching career, he was Dave Odom’s kid. For a weekend in March, he was the most popular coach in the country. Now he’s the coach trying to navigate a program past an unprecedented win with no road map, no directions, except those already taken.
“My message to our team is very simple: We’re always going to have that moment, those that were part of that particular team,” he said. “It could never be taken away from us. But our goal now is to create new and exciting moments. Every team has a life of its own, and that life is now over. And now we’ve got a new life started.” Tillett, associate head coach of the Navy women’s program, was named head coach at Longwood on April 12.
Gladchuk told Navy men’s coach Ed DeChellis and women’s coach Stefanie Pemper they could not hire replacements at this time. That means both programs now have three full-time assistants.
Men’s basketball has a fourth full-time staffer in Brandon Spayd, who holds a dual position as strength and conditioning coordinator and operations director.
By contrast, Army has five full-time positions in men’s and women’s basketball. In addition to four assistants, the Black Knights programs also have a director of basketball operations.
Service academies are allowed one additional assistant as compared with Division I civilian schools. Bucknell, which captured the Patriot League championship in men’s basketball, is limited to three full-time assistants, but coach Nathan Davis has a fourth staffer handling basketball operations. The program is assigned a strength and conditioning coach.
Gladchuk said the NAAAhas not imposed a hiring freeze and said replacing staff members will be made on a case-by-case basis. Gladchuk noted he has hired eight coaches in 2018, including three assistants in football along with coaches in volleyball, squash and water polo.
Some department heads have been told they must cut one staff member. Sports information recently had a full-time staffer transfer to another department and replaced that individual with an intern.
Gladchuk added that several long-time NAAA employees are getting set to retire in the coming year and that could provide additional savings. More than likely, those staffers will be replaced by less experienced people with lower salaries.
Just about every varsity head coach at the Naval Academy conducts camps during the summer in order to generate additional revenue. Most coaches use the camp money to supplement salaries, including those of assistants, and to purchase equipment.
The NAAA owns all the sports camps conducted on campus. However, the camps are organized and operated by the coaches.
In the past, the NAAA took 30 percent of camp money. In February, Gladchuk announced an additional 25 percent of camp profits (monies realized after salaries and expenses are paid) must go to the NAAA.
Gladchuk maintains that whatever the 25 percent winds up being will go into the operational budgets of each varsity sport.