Ross Hodge Believes WVU's Offense Can Snap Out of It if One Thing Happens

The offense has been hard to watch for West Virginia this year, but sometimes you still get surprised by how bad it's been when you comb through the numbers.

Well, at least I am.

Over the last five games, the Mountaineers have averaged a dreadful 57.4 points per game, eclipsing the 60-point mark just once, which of course, came in Sunday's 70-63 loss to Texas Tech. In this current stretch, they are 108/272 (39%) from the floor, 26/108 (24%) from three, 45/75 (60%) from the free throw line, and are averaging 11.6 turnovers per game.

Can it be fixed, though?

“You can do a lot of different things," WVU head coach Ross Hodge said on Thursday. "You can maybe send more people to the offensive glass. You can make a decision to send all five players to go rebound instead of maybe getting some of your guards back. You can try your best to manipulate some of the spacing components of where help is being offered from. And then there has to be individual accountability from the players as well. If you’re open or you’re getting to the foul line, you’ve got to step up there and make those, because that too helps alleviate scoring droughts. Scoring droughts are elongated if you go to the foul line and miss both free throws multiple times. I haven’t really looked at a time where I have watched back our games and just thought like, oh man, we’ve completely lost our way. We’re taking horrendous shots.”

Accountability is the key here.

As Hodge has stated many times before, you can get away with one or maybe even two of those areas, not boding well for you. When you can't make a shot from anywhere on the floor, AND you're turning the ball over, AND you're not the first to loose balls, your chances of winning evaporate.

I feel like I'm beating a dead horse here, but WVU has to get into its offense much sooner in the shot clock. Way too often, they are wasting nearly 10 seconds bringing it up the floor, another five or so to get set, another five or six seconds just to make the first pass or force the ball to Honor Huff, and they are left with very little time to find a quality shot. If they continue to waste as much time as they have, the results just simply aren't going to change.

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