Ross Hodge Addresses WVU’s Recent Struggles Ahead of Cincinnati Trip

The West Virginia Mountaineers (14-8, 5-4) prepare to travel to across Ohio and take on the Cincinnati Bearcats (11-11, 3-6) Thursday night. Tip-off is set for 7:00 p.m. EST and the action will be televised on ESPN2.

West Virginia is on the heels of its first home loss of the season, which snapped a 16-game home winning streak, dating back to last year. The unexpected loss to Baylor leaves the Mountaineers searching for answers and head coach Ross Hodge addressed some of the concerns heading into the matchup with a press conference on Tuesday.

Analysis of Baylor loss

“I thought in that game in particular, I thought our defensive intensity to start the game wasn't at the level that it needs to be at when you're facing the individual talent kind of that Baylor had. I thought we let Carr - his first three that he made was entirely too easy and I think gave up 15 points in the first four minutes of the game. And then, if you kind of do the math on the rest of the game until the last couple dunks they got, you probably only gave up 30 points, 35 points over the rest of the game. And so, I just thought our defensive intensity to start wasn't good enough. And then probably the two most important parts of the game that got you was the start and then in the second half when we did get it to 47 to 44 felt like it was kind of stuck on that score for about six minutes. We were getting stops but we weren't able to mirror that with finishing when we got the ball in some areas that we wanted to get it to and then some costly turnovers during that stretch as well were probably the two areas that cost you in that game in particular.”

Slow starts

“For a large part of the season, we were getting off to really fast starts and we were kind of having a harder time finishing and then really started in the Arizona State game. We got off to a slow start there, then Arizona. and then you come back for the last two at home. And so, it's a combination of a lot of different things that you're looking at. Obviously, we're evaluating that and looking at it and it's not just one singular issue - it's a lot of things. Some of its personnel issues, some of its coaching issues, some of it's not finishing and not - you know, you are getting the ball where you want to get it early in these games and maybe you're not making the play. And so, then you got to evaluate as a coach, well, maybe that's not the best way to start these games, but everybody's kind of had their hand in it across the board. If it was just kind of like one person that you felt like was creating slow starts, well, maybe you wouldn't start that person. But it's kind of been a little bit of everybody's had their hand in it and obviously we've talked about it and have looked at it specifically like hey is it something particular that's causing it and haven't kind of settled in on one thing in particular just other than needing to get off to better starts.”

Playing a team for the second time in the season (Establishing what WVU did will and anticipating adjustments)

“A combination of it all, and that's what's kind of unique in the time period that we're in, in college athletics is here we are already in February and you're still kind of an experiencing a first with your team and your group. This is the first time you've played a team for the second time as a group. Now, we've all done it. So, yeah, you're looking at it, okay, like the first time we played, hey, like this is some things they did that hurt us, and you would imagine that they're looking at that and feeling like, hey, we have an advantage in these areas, and what can you do to counterbalance that? And then also predicting things that you did to hurt them, assuming they may have a counter and not let you do that. And these games have such small margin for errors, I think the biggest thing you can't forget in all these things is you got to be good in the margins. You got to you got to get loose balls. You got to get second chance points. You've got to do your best to continue to rebound the ball really well and make sure that you're not getting too singularly focused on plays and actions and strategy, which is very important, but you can kind of lose the foundation of just competing.”

Analysis of Baylor loss

Slow starts

Playing a team for the second time in the season (Establishing what WVU did will and anticipating adjustments)

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