Quick Hits: Defensive Woes, Eaglestaff's Slump, Offensive Inefficiency + More

Thursday afternoon, West Virginia men's basketball coach Ross Hodge met with the media to discuss where the team stands heading into the final non-conference game of the season. Here's everything he had to say.

If defensive blame should go to adjustments or consistency

“It’s a combination of all of it. Some of it, there are times where you’re flat out not doing what you’ve been asked to do. There are a couple of possessions here and there where you’re not executing what you’ve been asked to do. And I think there’s other time periods where the inability to play through fatigue…breaks us down at times. And then there are some scenarios and situations where you can look back and evaluate schematically, are there better things to do with certain lineup combinations?”

The root of the defensive issues

“The other part that impacts your defense is your offense. It’s not like football, where your defense gets a stop, and they run off the field, and then your offense comes on. You do hear the term complimentary football, but basketball is the same way. If you look at some of those stretches where our defense has been its worst, it’s also coincided with our offense being inefficient. And then when you look at the time periods where our defense has been its best, it’s typically synced up with an efficient offense where you’re scoring, getting to the foul line, taking care of the ball.”

If he feels there’s enough Big 12 ready players on the roster

“You hope so. That’s where consistency from individual players allows you to not have to stretch other guys’ minutes as far as you have to. That’s where the individuals need to continue to improve on both sides of the ball, where you can be a little fresher in the second half of those games and not ride guys and extend them longer than you’d like.”

The blown lead vs. Ohio State

“We had 22 offensive possessions the last sixteen minutes of that game. We had nine turnovers, nine of our fifteen. So the other 35 minutes of the game, you only turned it over six times, which you can win doing that. But in that time period, we had nine turnovers, probably two or three ill-advised shots that you’d like back, and then you have a trip where you go to the line and go 0/2. So 14 of your 22 final possessions are fairly empty. You’re putting a ton of pressure on your defense if that’s what your offense is going to be doing.”

If one individual needs to step up to help out Huff on offense

“I don’t know if it’s that guy or guys. I think a lot of it is consistency. Can you get to the point where you’re consistently going into these games anticipating what you’re going to get from each guy? So maybe not one specific individual, but if you can get more consistency from more guys across the board, then it allows you to have the options that you want to be able to play with.”

Treysen Eaglestaff’s role moving forward

“Being able to execute defensively is going to be big. We talked about that, and he had done a really good job of that. He really bought into it, and that’s where I thought he was impacting winning regardless of whether his shot’s going in or out. That’s where we put our trust and our hope in is on the defensive end of the floor. If he’s executing defensively, that’s always going to allow him or anybody (to play more). In the case of Saturday night, he didn’t execute early in the second half, and it cost us, and then you couple that with you’re not having the most productive offensive night, then you don’t get to be in the game at that moment. It’s not like he’s meeting it with resistance or blame, or he doesn’t have the heart or the attitude that he’s getting screwed, or I’m picking on him. He knows he needs to be better, and he’s working really hard to be better.”