'Stayed the Course': WVU Battles Back to Knock Off Cincinnati on the Road

The West Virginia Mountaineers (15-8, 6-4) overcame a 14-point deficit to defeat the Cincinnati Bearcats (11-12, 3-7) Thursday night 59-54.

West Virginia senior guard Honor Huff paced the Mountaineers with 16 points – all coming in the second half and has six assists. Freshman forward DJ Thomas scored 10 of his 14 points on the night in the second half, with both of his three coming in the final four minutes of the game, and senior forward Brenen Lorient had 11 points.

WVU head coach Ross Hodge sat down with the media and gave some insight on the Mountaineers’ biggest comeback since 2022.

Opening Statement

“Obviously feel extremely fortunate to come out with the win tonight. To their credit, I thought they played with more force and more physicality in the first half. But to these guys credit, I thought we just kind of stayed the course. Honor got us going and got us back into that game with that stretch of shot making and then I thought just did a great job the rest of the way of making the simple play, and he's been obviously seeing a lot of attention, putting two on the ball a lot on him and part of his growth and his maturation through this process is trusting his teammates and just trusting that the game will open up and I thought he did just a tremendous job of that. And then, DJ obviously made the two monster threes down the stretch and was able to get enough stops and enough rebounds.”

“The play of the game in my opinion I don't remember exactly when it was, but it was a chaotic stretch. Maybe we were tied or maybe down one or up one - It was like super chaotic. I think maybe we turned it over, they turned it over, they missed an open transition three and (senior guard) Treysen Eaglestaff had a deep corner three that really hit like the front of the rim and bounced almost to half court and it looked like it was kind of a jailbreak play where they had like a four on one and Treysen sprinted back and (freshman guard) Amir (Jenkins) sprinted back and got a deflection and then that turned into a layup on the other end for him and I thought that was just a monster play. So, feel extremely fortunate to get a road win and anytime you can win on the road in the Big 12 again, you take it how it comes. So, we'll take this one and, get ready for the next one.

Huff’s 16 second half points

"You certainly want to try to just continue to put them in good spots. think Honors done a great job. They only took three shots in the first half. Credit to them. they made it hard on him and he just, again, stayed the course. We've seen that one we've seen it a time or two this year and you know when the first one goes and another one goes, he has the capability and then made some really great plays where he drove in there and got and ones as well when they really pressed up on him.”

DJ Thomas down the stretch

"I think that's a testament to our group. It's been different lineup combinations different nights and obviously we weren't playing great and so you're really as a coach you're searching for answers within the game and we kind of found that one lineup - it was Amir, Honor, Trey, DJ, and (senior guard) Chance (Moore) for a little bit and that's the group that really got us into the game. And I like DJ's ability to space the floor a little bit more because they were putting two on Honor and, again, was just proud of him. He puts in a ton of work as all these guys do. He's probably one of the highest character, mature freshman that that I've been around him, and Amir both. And happy for us, but you're really happy for him."

West Virginia is back in action Sunday afternoon as the Mountaineers return to the Hope Coliseum to host the No. 14 Texas Tech Red Raiders. Tip-off is set for 1:00 p.m. EST and the contest will be televised on FOX.

Opening Statement

Huff’s 16 second half points

DJ Thomas down the stretch

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