Ross Hodge Discusses Senior Night, Offensive Efficiency, and WVU’s Big 12 Position

The West Virginia Mountaineers (18-13, 9-9) capped the regular season with a 77-62 win over the UCF Knights (20-10, 9-9) Friday night at Hope Coliseum.

West Virginia led throughout most of the game and built a 10-point advantage near the midway point of the first half before taking a nine-point advantage into the break. After UCF trimmed the WVU lead to four with 12 minutes remaining in the game, the Mountaineers produced a 19-4 run to pull away from the Knights and capture their 18th win of the season.

Senior guard Honor Huff led all scorers with 24 points, senior forward Brenen Lorient registered his 11th consecutive double figure output with 14 points, and senior forward Chance Moore scored 13.

WVU head coach Ross Hodge gave his thoughts on the win after the game during the postgame press conference.

Opening Statement

I’m just so incredibly thankful for those seniors and incredibly happy for them and their family to be able to experience senior night here at West Virginia. You know, get the win, be able to hear country roads with their families in attendance. It’ll be a moment that they will never forget as a family unit for the rest of their lives.

Honestly, it’s one of the coolest sports traditions, if not the coolest, and just again for them to be able to experience that on a senior night, that’s what I’m just so happy for them. So happy for the players in the locker room and their families and that’s about where my heart is. Just thankful for them and the commitment and the time they’ve put into this program. Somebody’s got to be first and somebody’s got to take the first step without really knowing what it looks like. These guys did, and I’ll be forever grateful for them, and just really excited and happy for their families as well. Apple doesn’t’ fall far from the tree, and there’s a big reason why these guys are so resilient and have so much character, and their families have a lot to do with that.

The senior’s representing West Virginia for a season

I think when they decided to come here, that was part of the attraction. They knew that they wouldn’t just be representing a basketball program or a university, that you actually represent a state. The way that they’re received in public by real people. They run into people, and whether it’s grocery stores or parking lots, just the level of appreciation and gratitude that they feel from people in Morgantown is ultimately why they wanted to come here to begin with. It’s special to play here and represent this state, and there's not a lot of places like it.

Seizing a first round bye in the Big 12 Tournament

If you have hopes of winning a tournament, you want to play the fewest amount of days possible. That was big and gives us an extra day of rest. We book-ended the Big 12 play. We were the stand-alone game on a Friday night against Iowa State the first weekend of Big 12 play. We ended up being a standalone game tonight with UCF at home. Not only do you get the extra day of rest in that regard, but you get an extra day because you played on Friday.

Offensive efficiency

I’ve always been pretty open about it because it’s not football. I’ve said that before, its not football. Your offense doesn’t run on the field, and they score. Now, they run off, and the defense comes on. It’s symbiotic. One thing that is part of having a really elite defense and what we’ve had in the past, is we always married that with a very efficient offense. I don’t want to talk about the past and last year and all that stuff, but we had the second most efficient offense in our league last year. So, your offensive efficiency allows you to set your defense because you’re not turning the ball over. You get matched up. It just allows you to set your defense. A lot of times, the defense’s best friend is a highly efficient offense. So, when you can marry those two things, you typically get good results.