Ross Hodge press conference summary post Campbell
West Virginia head coach Ross Hodge addressed the media following the Mountaineers win over Campbell and here is a summary of what was said.
–Hodge said it was about what he expected watching their two closed door exhibitions against Davidson and Elon. The game against Wisconsin was similar to this game until the last four minutes. That was fully what they anticipated and expected but he felt his guys did a good job responding to the game pressure. They anticipated what it was going to be and responded when the game got tight. They defended well all night but just fouled too much. They made the big plays when they had to. He felt the DJ Thomas offensive rebound and stuck it back in was a big play. They’ll take it, get better and get practice.
–Hodge felt the first half you’re in front of your bench which helps defensively because you can communicate with your team. In the second half you get spread out and fatigued and lose your gap integrity. In the second half when they did make them miss they couldn’t come up with it but a lot of times you lose your rebounding position in rotations. They just weren’t physical enough in that area.
–Hodge felt that Honor Huff made some big plays down the stretch. It was good to see him respond in that moment and it was good to see the team respond.
–Yesterday guys took care of their academics in the morning then had recovery then met as team at 5 p.m. to watch 15-minutes of film, stretched and got their hands on a ball and didn’t move then came back and started to prep for this game.
–Hodge felt that his team shared the ball well and they got a little stagnant offensively. Some were good looks and some didn’t. It’s on him just to continue to get to the next action. Didn’t have enough flow into getting into what’s next. The guys are just trying so hard on defense and they rest on offense and leave your guards on an island standing and watching them. Hodge felt that he needs to help too.
–Hodge mentioned that from the onset, he’s never going to apologize for winning it’s hard. They know they have to get better and they’re far from a finished product. They know as a group they need to find ways to win them. Playing a couple young guys but there are clear points to the game that they can point to.
–Points in the paint is what Campbell does. He doesn’t know what it was in the first half because they guarded more like they were supposed to but in the second half they got more spread out and they were able to drive them more. It’s more about getting down on that end and communicating together.
–Hodge doesn’t think rebounding will work its way out and rebounding needs to be an emphasis. Two of their best rebounders are out right now but he isn’t one to make excuses.
–Hodge said they got spread out in the second half and some of it is execution, some of it is the offense manipulating the defense to spread it out because there is some grey area with the way they want to defend and some thinking involved. There’s two people that really understand it right now and some of those guys it takes a second to get the coverage.
–Hodge respects Campbell because he’s been those guys but the players also know they need to get way better, way, way better. That’s a while from now but you have to find a way to win games early when you’re not playing your best and it’s going to be a while before they’re playing their best.
—Brenen Lorient can be an option coming out of timeouts so there is some anticipation of what they think you could be thinking.
–We’ve played 80 minutes of basketball and have led for 70 of them. They’ve felt real game pressure and the biggest pressure you can feel when those games get close it can flip on you and they haven’t allowed that to get to that point. They’ve been able to respond and there hasn’t been any panic and execute those things at the end of the game to win.
–To start the second half the first shot defense was good but they couldn’t keep them off the glass.
–Hodge has a lot of confidence in his team free throw shooting because he’s seen the work they’ve put in and he wasn’t overly concerned with the first game’s results. It was good to see them with game pressure.
–Hodge said that he didn’t think his team was stagnant at times they just didn’t make them but times they do get stagnant he has to do a better job getting the ball moving.
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