Hodge not backing down from lofty goals as West Virginia’s head coach
West Virginia head coach Ross Hodge is entering his first season with the Mountaineers, but he’s not backing down from his long-term goal of getting his team to be in the national conversation on a yearly basis.
“We want to win a national championship. I mean, that’s the only reason you do this. Ultimately, it’s what we do. I think you can do it here,” Hodge said on a recent 3 Guys Before the Game episode.
Hodge is no stranger to success as a head coach across all levels of college basketball, but he also knows WVU has a history of success, and he hopes to repeat that success.
“They’ve made it to Final Fours here before with Coach Huggins in 2010, and to me, you have to find a way to consistently get back to being in the NCAA tournament yearly. And if you can get in the tournament yearly, then you have the opportunity — somebody else gets upset, next thing you know, next year in the sweet 16, you’re in the elite eight, and then you’re in the final four,” Hodge said.
West Virginia has only made two NCAA Tournament appearances since 2018, as Hodge’s goal is to get the Mountaineers back in the tournament on a consistent basis.
“If you’re talking about like blue blood programs that, you know, people that make final four runs, well, there’s a lot of, a lot of also one and done years where they get upset in the first round, right, but they’re just in the tournament every year,” Hodge said.
“And so they get knocked out, somebody upsets them, and yeah, you remember it, but then it’s like two years later, you’re in the elite eight again. And so I think consistently being in the NCAA tournament is a big, a big start,” Hodge said.
Unlike past years, Hodge has a unique opportunity to overhaul his roster in today’s era of college basketball due to the transfer portal. That’s an obvious key difference from how the game was even a decade ago, and Hodge recognizes that means he has to have success early on.
“Especially in a time period and the way that college athletics is, I don’t think anybody wants to hear anybody talk about a three to five year plan, and you just don’t get that anymore,” Hodge said.
__________________________________________
• Talk about it with West Virginia fans on The Blue Lot
• SUBSCRIBE today to stay up on the latest on Mountaineer sports and recruiting
• Get all of our WVU videos on YouTube by subscribing to the WVSports.com Channel
• Follow us on Twitter: @WVSportsDotCom, @rivalskeenan, @wesleyshoe
•Like us on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok
