Did Ross Hodge Overachieve in His First Year on the Job at WVU?

Year one is largely in the books for Ross Hodge at West Virginia, barring any participation in The College Basketball Crown or other postseason event. As things stand, he holds an 18-14 overall record, finished seventh in the Big 12 Conference, and registered signature wins against Kansas and BYU, who were both ranked at the time.

It wasn't all pretty, hence the record, but Hodge has received a ton of unwarranted criticism, if you ask me. It's alright for fans to feel frustrated with missing out on the NCAA Tournament, how poor the offense was, or something as simple as the starting lineup. When things aren't all sunshine and rainbows, you have the right to be upset.

The thing I've been trying to hammer home all year is that this is the worst a Ross Hodge-led team should ever be. This is the ground floor, and he damn near had them in the tournament, finishing in the top half of the best league in the country. He didn't have the athletes or an NBA talent like Darian DeVries had with Javon Small a year ago, which is why it constantly felt like an uphill battle.

For those who are extremely concerned with the offense, don't stress yourself out too much over it. At North Texas, Hodge's teams were at the top of the conference in offensive efficiency. It just takes getting the right pieces in place for that to happen, and landing the highest-rated recruit in program history is a pretty good start.

Because of their many deficiencies, this team had no business winning 18 games, if we're all being honest with ourselves. Nothing about this group screams top half of the Big 12, and yet, Hodge willed them to that part of the league because of his ability to coach elite defense.

When Honor Huff and Treysen Eaglestaff came to West Virginia, one of the biggest concerns everyone had was them turning into a liability defensively. They weren't All-Big 12 defenders by any stretch of the imagination, but they were greatly improved and held their own. To think that those two plus two freshmen regularly in the rotation helped create one of the best defenses in the country says something.

Ross Hodge was hired because he can really coach defense. Entering today's slate of games, WVU ranks sixth nationally in scoring defense (64.7 ppg/allowed), and 39th in opposing field goal percentage (39%). If he can get that kind of production out of this group, what do you think he will be capable of when he gets faster, more athletic players on the roster?

Just my opinion here, but if West Virginia was abysmal on the defensive end this season, that would be a much larger concern because that's his bread and butter. This year shows that the defense is always going to be there; now it's just about improving on the offensive end, and that comes with landing better talent.

One thing that I've seen repeated over and over this season is that Ross Hodge is the basketball version of Neal Brown. Uh, no. Sorry, my friends, but that may be the laziest and most inaccurate narrative out there. Brown did not have anywhere near the success Hodge had in year one, although it's comparing apples to oranges with it being different sports and circumstances. Hodge milked everything he could out of this group

They were down double digits several times, and regardless of the situation, he was able to keep them engaged, playing until the final horn, and on a few occasions, they were rewarded for that grit by engineering some comeback victories. A coach who can achieve that is one who is clear in his messaging and has a high level of buy-in from the players.

And no, 18-14 is not the standard for WVU, but give the guy some grace. He's the program's fourth head coach in as many years and is only in his third year as a Division I head coach, meaning he's learning while on the job. There's no guarantee that he's going to have the same success as Bob Huggins, John Beilein, or Gale Catlett, but it's way too early to say that it's impossible.