Ross Hodge press conference summary 12-31
West Virginia head coach Ross Hodge addressed the media Wednesday and WVSports.com provides a summary of what was said.
–Hodge said not a whole lot to update outside players getting back Dec. 27 and they’ve been practicing and looking forward to the start of Big 12 play.
—Iowa State starts with their defense and they’re one of the best there in the country. They do an elite job of turning your turnovers into points and lead the country in turnover percentage. One out of every four offensive possessions they’re turning people over. Joshua Jefferson is playing at an elite level, shooting the ball, draws fouls and makes plays for others. Milan Momcilovic is a very good shooter. Tamin Lipsy is experienced at the point and they play together with good pace and they’re good.
–You’re always going to tweak some things going into each game based on other team’s base coverages and what they do defensively. And you’re spending an equal amount of time trying to slow them down and take them out of things they want to do. Good teams, great teams can win ways multiple ways and can grind them out when necessary and have the offensive firepower to score if they need to win the game that way. The more ways to win a game the better you’re going to be. West Virginia is still figuring that out themselves and while they’ve shown glimpses that they have a good formula they’ve had other parts where they haven’t executed on either end of the floor.
–Hodge said that everyone knows it’s the start of Big 12 play but all games matter especially when you’re trying to talk about getting at large bids. There isn’t a game on the schedule that doesn’t matter.
–Hodge said that his team is not in a situation where they would hold anything back regardless of who they’re playing. As it pertains to this one, they know they’re going to have to play well and good stretches of basketball to give themselves a chance. You have to try to minimize the length of their runs and you don’t want them to be elongated. There’s ten four-minute games and you have to try to win each little four minute segment to keep the game in-tact.
–Hodge feels like the body language of the team in tough losses and the togetherness was good. They have looked at executions and where the breakdowns occurred to see if they could look at things they could modify and tweak. How they’ve supported each other has been good in the midst of winning and losing.
–You are always learning about your team especially when it’s a new team. This will be the first Big 12 gam and first true road game. This gives you an opportunity to learn about your team and grow.
–Hodge hasn’t addressed the NET with his team a lot. If you spend time on what you can control typically if you’re doing the rest of those things it takes care of itself. They don’t spend a lot of time talking about it or other metrics.
–Hodge believes the opponents have some things they know about them whether they’re watching them on film and what they like to do and things they like to go to. They have a good baseline of what they want to see but teams are always morphing and changing but nobody will be what they will be in a couple of months from now. Everybody is evolving with hopes of playing your best basketball at the end.
–You’re able to establish a base identity in those early practices so he’s still trying to figure out the best lineup combinations, best offensive lineups and best defensive lineups and that will be the case for a little bit.
–Hodge was aware of the rules on eligibility and has seen it with some of the pro players attempting to retain eligibility. He hasn’t put a lot of time and energy into it outside of trying to understand the rules and what they can do. If it’s in the rule book and you can do it, he imagines any program will try to do anything they can to give themselves a competitive advantage. He doesn’t have a strong opinion, he just wants to know what the rules are going to be and can there be a level of consistency with that. That’s all you can really ask from a coaching standpoint so tell them what they can and can’t do and operate within those rules with how they’ve changed.
–Iowa State is very efficient offensively. What they do is they convert defense to offense at an elite level and when not they are very efficient. They have different ways they can play through. They’re opportunistic they play with pace, they turn you over and then have good efficient players that are capable of making shots.
–If a player could come in and help you win and hypothetically if when they had to start the season without Jackson Fields or Chance Moore and you could bring in a player that could give you 10-15 minutes a game you have to explore that as long as it’s allowed.
–Hodge heard a lot about Iowa State when Larry Eustachy was there. He talked about how special it was and what they were able to accomplish while he was there. As a competitor, Hodge wants to play against the best and the best environments and certainly Iowa State is one of the best in the country. In a lot of ways, set a standard for what many people would like a program to look like. They develop players and their players get better and you want to be part of these type of games. You can’t play perfect, but you better have perfect intentions with what you want to do.
–Players Era Tournament has some excitement associated with it and there are some opportunities there. You won’t talk to your team too much about it because the way it’s going to be layered is it will be two-years out. The top eight from this year won’t go next year you will go in 2027. He doesn’t know if that’s all the way iron-clad done but it’s been discussed. And with the time period now with the transfer portal, it’s hard to look two years out. It’s a by-product of more so if you finish in the top eight of the Big 12 you’re an NCAA Tournament team. It’s something that’s exciting to be a part of and given the opportunity they’d love to be a part of it.
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