Ross Hodge Discusses the Turnovers and the Defensive Lapses Against Wake Forest

The West Virginia Mountaineers (7-3) fell to the Wake Forest Demon Deacons (7-3) Saturday evening 75-66 in the Holiday Hoopfest at the Charleston Coliseum in Charleston, West Virginia.

West Virginia head coach Ross Hodge met with the media following the game and gave his thoughts on the Mountaineers’ 17 turnovers, defensive effort, and more.

Opening statement

First got to start off with acknowledging the crowd. Super appreciative of everybody that came out. I knew it something we wanted to do was get back down here and something we were really thankful of the Gazelle Group and Wake Forest agreed to come down here, and for everybody to show and they tried their best to will us in the first half and even the second half – just couldn’t string enough quality basketball together to match their energy that they tried.

We knew going into the game that when they beat people or almost beat people that points off turnovers and second chance points were a big part of the game. When they lost to Michigan by one, they had 40 points off turnovers and second chance points. When they also beat (Texas) Tech in the Bahamas, the same scenario. Oklahoma did a really good job the other night of not doing that.

We weren’t fundamental enough. We got sped up in some different areas and just couldn’t make the simple play. Pass fake, ball fake, catch the ball with two hands, put two hands on the ball – there’s a lot of things you can point to and look to, but that’s a big one. 17 turnovers for a team – we had been a very low turnover team up until this point. And just not doing a good enough of (sophomore guard) Juke (Harris). You just can’t let a good player like that get going. Gave him a couple easy catch and shoot threes to start the game.

Just didn’t do a good enough job in those areas and if you’re going to turn it over 17 times and not shoot the ball very well, then you got to be elite defensively. We had some moments and stretches where we were good, but not good enough in the second half.

17 turnovers on the night

They’re aggressive defensively. They put two on the ball when you set ball screens. They double team in the post. Typically, people won’t even rotate off (senior guard) Honor (Huff), but they were full rotating off him and scrambling around and using their athleticism, getting deflections and they hurry you up a little bit in situations you shouldn’t be hurried. Again, credit to them and something we’ll have to learn from.

Allowing Wake Forest to shoot 50.9% from the field

We just didn’t execute at the level defensively that we needed to. They do a good job of moving pieces – they’re not stationary, but within that movement, there were certain areas that we felt we could help from, and we just didn’t execute it for long stretches.

Opening statement

17 turnovers on the night

Allowing Wake Forest to shoot 50.9% from the field

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