Ross Hodge press conference summary 10-9
West Virginia head coach Ross Hodge addressed the media Thursday at a press conference and here is a summary of what was said.
–Closed door scrimmage the following weekend and everybody is looking forward to that. Guys have been working hard and everybody is pretty healthy outside of Jackson Fields recovering.
–There’s only so much you can improve on in practice when you’re playing against yourself. The next part of growth is getting out there and playing against somebody else and getting exposed a little bit. No matter how forward thinking you try to be with situations and putting your team in difficult spots, until you get out in a game you’re always amazed in game situations you end up playing with a line up that you never practiced before for a lot of different reasons.
–In this time period when you haven’t been in the foxhole so to speak, only two guys Jasper Floyd and Brenen Lorient you’ve been in game situations with so you try to put them in adverse situations. But there is nothing like actually being in a game against somebody else and all the ebbs and flows of games.
–Ballin at Morgantown is going to be a fun event.
–The freshmen are willing learners and their ability to process information and take coaching and not take it personal has been good. They’re still learning the physicality and speed. Hodge said that listening is a skill and the ability to understand what the coaches want you to do and apply it to the floor is a skill.
–Hodge said that when you have a closed door scrimmage you will set the parameters of what you want to do leading into that but everybody approaches it differently. Some like to do special situations, some like to do 20-minute halves and resent the score. They’re going to have a closed door scrimmage with Maryland but they haven’t discussed how they will approach those things. What he wants to see from that game is his team supporting each other and playing through mistakes because there is a lot that goes wrong. They’ve changed the rules on not releasing the information but he hasn’t discussed with Maryland how it will work. He can discuss all of that.
–A lot of it with recruiting and visits is when they can do it. They are flexible with the dates and really it’s trying to figure out what works with the family and the student athlete. If it aligns with a football weekend that’s the plus. It’s a little different from player to player. In the spring with the transfer portal recruiting it’s like speed dating they want to be in or out and see the gym and see their basketball role. They aren’t too interested in seeing much. Freshmen want to see campus and where they will live. Not necessarily figuring it out in terms of what they highlight on visits as basketball players want to see the practice facility, the Coliseum and they hit Oliverio’s for dinner at night and show them around Morgantown.
–Some of it is a little bit of both. You want to be flexible when building a roster. It is important to have carry over from year to year. Freshmen are still important. Teams that have had a lot of success Houston has retained their players. It’s important to add a couple freshmen to each class.
–Hodge can be a fiery guy on the sideline and tries his best to reflect what he wants from his team to move onto the next play which is hard sometimes. He tries to do that and tries to think as clearly he can in chaotic moments and there is an emotional component. You want to play with emotion but you don’t want to be emotional. Hodge would hope if he is having a negative reaction in a game he’s hoping the official would think maybe they did miss a call because he doesn’t do that very often. He doesn’t overreact to every call.
–Hodge likes to try to keep a group starting if possible but each year is different. There is something from a continuity and rhythm standpoint. They haven’t always started their best players like Brenen Lorient was a first-team all-conference player last year off the bench so it’s about finding the combinations that work well together on the floor. All of that factors into who starts. Players like to start and parents like to hear their kid’s names called but in reality it’s not that important.
–Hodge imagines that Brenen Lorient will transition into a starting role. You could play him at the four or five last year and he never once came to him and said he wanted to start. There was some precedence there as Tylor Perry and Jason Edwards both came off the bench before. You want to have a certain amount of shooting and ball handling on the floor at all times.
–Hodge isn’t married to either fouling up three late or letting it play out. They practice it and it all depends on the situation on the team in each game. This is 23 years of college coaching and he’s only been in that situation about five or six times. They get feedback from the players about what they are comfortable doing.
–The coaches that Hodge played for Leonard Bishop in high school where he played man-to-man defense and Bill Foy at junior college and zone was a four letter expletive. As it progressed as him as a player not being extremely athletic he had to have a certain amount of grit and fight to get on the floor. The coaches he was under and how he had to get on the floor is how his emphasis on defense happened. You’re not always going to shoot the ball well and if you’re going to win this league you need to have the best defense because those teams typically win the Big 12.
–Hodge didn’t play organized basketball until the eighth grade but loved the team ethos of being out there together and fell in love with the game and process of getting better and making each other better. He still loves football and baseball but both of those sports are harder to make your teammates better just by being on the floor unless it’s the guy on the mound in baseball. The feeling of taking you and four other guys and seeing if you can beat five other guys.
–No different with the practice schedule for Chance Moore. He does have the ability to play in the closed door scrimmage and the exhibition.
–When it comes to substitutions they script a few and the coaches talk about it. They want to sub guys quickly into a game usually at the first dead ball timeout and Coach Jase Herl and Johnny Estelle have a good understanding of what they want to do. They talk about it as much as they can before it happens so they aren’t caught off guard if they have to do substitutions.
–Hodge said you have to be honest initially but if you want to play at the highest level of basketball you have to defend. If you’re not Luka Doncic or Steph Curry and even those guys have improved over time on that end. You have to be able to hold up on the defensive end and buy into that. There are no secrets and people have tried to use that negatively against them but that speaks to the player’s maturity of knowing that they do want to compete at the highest level and they can’t do that if they’re a pillow on defense. You have to be able to guard somebody. For Honor Huff the defense is coming. The first step is them wanting to be a good defender and typically if somebody wants to do that and they want to get it they usually get it.
–With Treysen Eaglestaff’s size he has the ability to make shots and get on rolls. He is a good passer but has improved. They’re trying to find that happy medium or being aggressive but not just jacking the ball up. Honor Huff doesn’t get tired and his motor runs and he’s in great condition and naturally he has a great gas tank. He doesn’t get tired.
–Hodge said visually and what you hear your team saying are good barometers of how the team is progressing in the off-season. That’s the markers you’re looking at now but when you play against somebody else all of that gets flipped on its head because you do get used to playing against yourself and what that will look like. But until you’re out there playing against somebody else that will be the next marker.
–Ross Hodge and Mark Kellogg both worked for the Dallas Mavericks summer camps in the past.
–Hodge said that Lorient made some big plays and they couldn’t keep them off the glass and he remembers talking to his staff and saying they’d like to have a player with that length and versatility. They anticipated him being a good player but he doesn’t know if you ever really think it will be a first-team all league player. They did see his growth and knew he was getting coached well at FAU and knew he could be a weapon with his length and versatility on defense.
Offer Alert
Fall camp is here and there’s no better time to sign up with us to get all your WVU intel! Sign up today – $1 for the first week, plus a complimentary year of access to The Athletic included. Join – http://gowvu.us/Join
__________________________________________
• 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
•Like us on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok
