Ross Hodge press conference summary 7-24
West Virginia head basketball coach Ross Hodge addressed the media Thursday and WVSports.com provides a recap of what was said during his press conference.
Hodge said the transition has been fast and furious with how quickly everything has happened. He believes good about what they were able to put together and add. Summers are good because the players don’t have a ton of responsibility and they get eight hours a week with the coaches to get to know each other and become familiar with one another. They want to establish a baseline and once they get to the fall they can create the habits you expect.
Hodge said what they try to do is to build a baseline with experience with guys that have won at different places. He believes he has done that with this roster meshing a lot of guys that understand what winning takes. They now have to teach them how to win together. You start there and then you do the best you can assembling it and figure out the strengths and weaknesses of each team and build from there.
Hodge believes his experience at junior college has helped him with how roster building has changed. You have to be resourceful and you have to lean on relationships and trust what people are telling you when it comes to assembling a roster. They search for guys that love basketball and love other people.
Hodge says they do have one scholarship remaining and right now they plan on using it. He said it’s best available although he understands fans would like to see another big but there’s usually only one of those on the floor at a time. He believes they have pretty good balance on their rosters and they’re trying to add the right person on top of being the right player.
With Amir Jenkins they went really hard and aggressive after him. He makes other people better and they feel fortunate to be able to add him when they were able to do it. They got him to reclassify. Hodge believes that he was mentally ready to reclassify and make the move.
With the information they had on Chance Moore they felt he had a strong case to get a waiver. It’s not always the case, but sometimes there are areas you leave up to chance but in this situation they felt confident in what happened and what it was with the supporting documents to get it approved.
Candidly speaking the chance of bringing in a high school kid in a seeing them develop over five years anymore is likely not going to happen. It’s all case-by-case. Sometimes you’ll redshirt if the situation is right but you have to be careful with it. This current climate forces coaches to run marathons at sprinters paces and you have to be efficient and intentional with your days. The days have always counted but they really count now and you have to be efficient with what you’re doing.
Hodge said that the team has really supported each other so far and are willing learners. They want to do what they’re being asked to do although they can’t always do it. This group has been very supportive and works really hard as well as caring about basketball. They are excited to go on this journey.
Hodge thinks they have Harlan Obioha who has worked really hard on his conditioning and body. Then they have more combo type of forward Brenen Lorient, Jackson Fields and DJ Thomas. You can play different ways with them playing big collectively. You’re not going to play with two 7-footers, but collectively the size is good across the board. They can play a lot of different ways with this lineup and he feels comfortable with the size they have on this roster.
Offensively you have to find leverage points of the defense and try to find a way to make somebody get two people on the ball and play from there. That can be accomplished a lot of different ways with different positions. Defensively the more guys that can defend multiple positions and he feels comfortable with what they have. They’ve got good length, intelligent players and guys that can move on the defensive side.
The game of basketball itself is what it is but anytime you move up you have more responsibilities but so many of these guys have played against these players since they were young moving up a level. Most have been in situations where you played against the teams at this level but there’s an adjustment with the attention, scrutiny and that part of it. The basketball part doesn’t change much with what it takes to win at the highest level. It’s about putting together a staff you believe in and a team you believe in to enhance your strengths. Hodge believes there is a way to win every game you go into but you have to find it and go execute it although it might be more difficult depending on the teams.
Honor Huff and Treysen Eaglestaff can both shoot the ball and that translates. They’re still learning the defensive part but he expects both of them to be good players here.
It’s a new norm that teams have to deal with when it comes to a lot of roster turnover from year to year. It’s hard to get better when you’re playing against yourself every day. The difference between football and basketball is you can challenge yourself in non-conference in basketball and lose a couple and learn. In football you lose a couple games you can’t even play for a national championship.
One of the hardest things for a young player to figure out is shot selection and why some people can shoot a certain shot and others can’t. That’s something that is learned overtime and they will work through that together and find a way to win.
Hodge said no matter what anybody thinks about a school, you actually get to step between the lines with officials and figure out who’s better that night. That’s what he loves about sports the most. He has been on both sides of the coin where he was supposed to be the team to win or the team trying to knock them off.
Hodge said he doesn’t spend a lot of time worrying about what other people are doing but they spend a ton of time trying to figure out what they need to do to get better as a team and individually. Identifying the strengths and weaknesses and going from there.
Hodge doesn’t foresee him hiring a general manager which is assigned with picking the team and spending the budget, because he wants to have everybody to be involved. He ultimately has to make the decision so ultimately he is the general manager.
Hodge was amazed with the vision they had when they built the practice facility and how forward thinking it was that it looks as new as any being built today.
Hodge said they have one position open on the coaching staff and plan on filling it soon. He has five assistants right now but they can be flexible with how they move people around with titles.
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