Hodge at WVU’s helm after North Texas’ NIT run

For a week after he was hired at West Virginia, new guys’s basketball coach Ross Hodge wore 2 hats.Hodge remained on as the coach at North Texas to get the Mean Green prepared to play in the semifinals of the National Invite Competition, where they lost Tuesday night to UC Irvine in Indianapolis.With the transfer website already open, Hodge also invested considerable time considering that his March 26 hiring getting acquainted with the Mountaineers while working the phones to contact prospective employees. And while campus visits by potential players together with in-person contact with them stops Friday during the NCAA’s one-week” dead duration, “Hodge stated he will”hit the ground running “after April 10.” This is a true blessing and this is a chance that I certainly don’t take lightly,” Hodge said throughout his introduction at West Virginia on Thursday.Editor’s Picks 2 Related It was a more intimate welcome held in a little auditorium compared to predecessor Darian DeVries, who walked out to a much larger crowd at the group

‘s basketball arena that included the school’s pep band and cheerleaders when he got here from Drake a year ago for his only season. DeVries was employed at Indiana last month.Hodge did participate in West Virginia’s home baseball game versus archrival Pittsburgh on Wednesday night. He got to see direct West Virginia’s PG-rated performance of Neil Diamond’s”Sweet Caroline,

“which involves a not-so-nice chant targeted at the Panthers.Hodge discussed his no-cursing guideline in practice due to the fact that, he stated, there are other ways to motivate individuals. He enforces 5 pushups upon anybody who does.” The Hodge household was doing about 500 pushups when we were listening

to the Mountaineer variation of’Sweet Caroline, ‘” he said.Then, less than 6 hours before Thursday’s press conference, twister caution sirens shrieked around Morgantown. Hodge said it reminded him of an analogy from his partner, Shelly, that he borrows as a method to training. Shelly Hodge is a Maryland native and a trainer in yoga and Pilates, a series of exercises that in part helps improve versatility.” It’s the versatile trees that endure storms, “Hodge said.” The stiff, rigid trees, they break under storms. So you have actually got to have some flexibility. You have actually got to be able to develop. And you can’t be so stubborn in a certain manner in which’this is how we’re

going to do things’beyond you are going to play extremely tough, we are going to play together. We’re going to play for each other, and there’s going to be a connection among the group.” Hodge went 46-24 in two seasons as coach of the Mean Green, including 27-9 this season. While Hodge has no NCAA tournament experience as a head coach, he has actually been part of staffs that went to three of them, consisting of an upset of Purdue as a No. 13 seed in 2021. Hodge is credited as the architect of the North Texas defense, which had the country’s No. 1 scoring defense in 2021-22 and 2022-23. This wasn’t the first time Hodge had stepped on West Virginia’s campus. He was with North Texas when it played at West Virginia’s home opener in the 2020-21 season. The Mean Green could not hang on to an eight-point halftime lead.On the day he took the West Virginia task, North Texas barely beat Oklahoma

State in the NIT quarterfinals. There was an angst from West Virginia fans who had to wait another week for Hodge to arrive on school, while also narrowly avoiding the dissatisfaction from Mean Green fans to the end of a season.

“I thought there for a second I was going to be the only coach in the country to get concurrently crushed by 2 fan bases at the exact same time, “Hodge said.West Virginia athletic director Wren Baker was the AD from 2016 to 2022 at North Texas, where Hodge was an assistant for six seasons under Grant McCasland, now at Texas Tech. Baker stated he was provided rave evaluations about Hodge both from McCasland and Michigan coach Dusty May, and that Hodge was clear in his desire to” plant roots and accept West Virginia.

“Now, he’ll direct the Mountaineers through their third straight season of lineup transformations.”He has great experience in restoring, retooling and refilling lineups, “Baker stated. “I’m pleased we discovered a coach that inspected all of our boxes. “