West Virginia’s 103-66 exhibition win over Glenville State on Friday night gave Ross Hodge plenty to talk about afterward, but the bigger story for the first-year coach was the night itself. Hodge made clear that the game carried meaning well beyond the scoreboard.
“Some things are bigger than basketball, and obviously tonight was bigger than basketball. Got to honor an incredible man.
It’s a big part of the reason why we chose to do this and his love for Glenville, his love for West Virginia, his love for both universities, how much he’s poured into everybody. It was a surreal moment, a surreal week.
Just an incredible night for everyone that was involved. It was first class all the way around.”
On the court, Hodge said his team showed improvement in how it handled key stretches, even if the Mountaineers still looked like a group with work to do. West Virginia entered the night at 1-1 in preseason play after the rout.
“I thought that our attention to that part of the game was better at a concerted effort. It’s what’s great about these opportunities. You get a chance to learn about yourself, and you hope that each time out you get a little bit better.”
He pointed to the end of the first half as a step forward, but not a clean finish. Hodge also said the opening minutes after halftime weren’t where they needed to be, and that the game again showed how much room remains for growth.
“I thought we close the first half better. We were in similar situations.
We talked about that in the last timeout before the first half. The score was very similar.
We had a 19-point lead at Maryland going into the last media timeout. We didn’t finish it as strong as we would have liked.
We ended up still going up 15, but just didn’t finish the half as well as we wanted. I thought we finished the half a little bit better.
Wasn’t super happy with the start of the second half. We got back into that mode where we were trading baskets a little bit.
That just shows that we’re far from a finished product.”
Hodge also addressed the status of a player who was held out, saying the injury is a thigh bruise that came when Pharrell Payne drove a knee into him on a ball screen. He said the player practiced non-contact on Thursday and is moving in the right direction.
“He got just a thigh bruise. He got a knee on a ball screen.
(Pharrell) Payne knee’d him, and that’s a big knee, so he practiced yesterday non-contact, and usually you want to try to get a guy a little contact before you throw him in a game. But he’s trending in the right direction.
I would anticipate, barring any sort of setbacks, that he’ll be back for Wednesday.”
The coach also praised one of his players for the way he rebounds, tying it to a strong track record on the international stage.
“He’s a talented rebounder. He led the under-18s FIBA in rebounding when he played for his national team, and that usually translates.”
And Hodge said he wasn’t shocked by the effort he saw in practice turning into production in a game, noting the player brings the same edge every day.
“He does it every day in practice. I wasn’t overly surprised to see it play out because he does it every day.
He’s competitive. He’s physical.
We have good practices because of our depth. So, you get a lot of, like, iron sharpens iron in there, and he sticks his nose right into the middle of it.”
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Honor Huffs West Virginia Future Just Took Another Turn
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Huff has a hearing scheduled for next week that could determine whether he gets a preliminary injunction to play elsewhere. For West Virginia, the situation adds one more layer of uncertainty to a roster that already has no obvious opening for him, leaving his future to be decided first by the legal process and then by whatever opportunities remain once that process plays out. [Read more 🡒]