Ross Hodge focused on what his team can control
West Virginia was slotted 11th in the Big 12 Conference poll to start the season, but don’t expect first-year head coach Ross Hodge to spend much time on it with his team.
That’s because Hodge doesn’t expend much energy on the order of teams before any actual games are played. The biggest reason is that over his career, he has been on both sides of the coin with teams that both exceeded and failed to meet those expectations.
“Don’t put a lot of thought into it. It’s kind of one of those control what you can control deals,” he said. “There’s a lot of good teams and good coaches and good players in the league.”
The Mountaineers will enter the season with a completely new coaching staff and almost an entirely new roster with only one player returning from last season’s 19-13 finish. And Abraham Oyeadier didn’t even see the floor as he redshirted in his first season with the program.
On the basketball side of things, the coaches still release the preseason poll, unlike football, but Hodge sees both sides of the coin given the way that the game has changed.
“There’s so much turnover from year to year and really on some levels you’re guessing. Not with everybody obviously some teams at the top have a good majority or really important pieces back,” he said.
The Mountaineers also were slotted at 67th in the initial KenPom ratings and Hodge takes the same approach there, although he recognizes that those will factor in some historical data such as adjusted defense from years past and how transfers after performed at previous stops.
“You can’t really control it but it is a barometer where you’re starting at least and if you take advantage of some of your non-conference opportunities, you can climb up the ladder a little bit,” he said.
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