Ross Hodge uses non-conference to challenge, learn about team
Ross Hodge has always been a firm believer in testing his team in the non-conference portion of the schedule.
Even at West Virginia, where Hodge’s team will play a loaded 18-game Big 12 slate, it’s still critical to identify what his team has in the early makings of the season.
The Mountaineers are still in the process of finalizing what the non-conference schedule will look like but there are already games against Pittsburgh at home, neutral site contests against Ohio State in Cleveland, and Wake Forest in Charleston and the 2025 Shriners Children’s Charleston Classic.
That tournament will pit the Mountaineers against two of the three of Xavier, Clemson, and Georgia.
The reasoning for the schedule is simple as playing challenging teams will give Hodge an idea of where his team stands and what their strengths and weaknesses are.
And unlike in football, basketball provides some opportunities to find that out in the non-conference portion of the schedule without derailing a season with some early-year losses.
“You can maybe take a couple licks here and there that not that anyone ever intends on losing any game we play, but, you know, you can lose a couple and you can learn from those situations, you can grow, you can get better,” Hodge said.
In order to prepare for the grueling slate in the Big 12, Hodge believes that challenging his team will have them in the best position possible. That means it won’t be easy and there could be some early-season challenges as the team acclimates, but that will pay off when it matters the most.
And the structure of college basketball affords teams those chances even with the goal to win every basketball game that you play.
“Depending on the difficulty of your schedule and how hard it is, you could lose three, four, five non-league games and still have everything you want ahead of you in the postseason play,” he said.
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