The Truth About Ross Hodge's First Season That Critics Do Not Want to Hear

Making the NCAA Tournament was always going to be a challenge for Ross Hodge in his first year as the head coach at West Virginia, whether folks want to believe that or not.

Flipping the roster is one thing, but he is the program's fourth head coach in four years. When you have that much turnover at the top, no one expects you to be in a position to punch a ticket to the dance. Most situations like this, and there are probably not many, result in a program in utter disarray with no hope for the future.

That's not what's happening here.

Hodge has the Mountaineers at 6-5 in the Big 12 Conference, which is quite the feat when you consider how much turnover there's been, the lack of stability, and the fact that three of those losses came to national championship contenders on the road.

Are there games that WVU should have won and didn't? Yes.

Are there games that WVU looked abysmal in? Yes.

Are there games that WVU played ugly but won? Yes.

These things are all a part of what typically happens in the first year of a new coach. There is nothing alarming about this season whatsoever.

The offense may be putrid, but that doesn't mean it will continue to be. In Hodge's two years as the head man at North Texas, the Mean Green ranked 131st and 90th in offensive efficiency. West Virginia in those two years? 258th and 254th. The offense will only continue to improve as the years go on, starting next season when the highest-rated recruit in program history, Miles Sadler, works his way to Morgantown.

I understand fans want immediate results, but as Bill Self said after falling to Hodge and WVU earlier this season, "This league is a b****."

In the 13 years WVU has been in the Big 12, they finished with a winning record in league play just five times. With just four more wins, Hodge will make that six in fourteen years. Making the tournament is the benchmark for how most coaches are judged, but in this case, going over .500 in league play should be considered a success, especially when there is not a single NBA talent on the roster.

The results will come. The part that should be encouraging to fans is that this group plays hard, connected, and has zero quit in them. Even Texas Tech head coach Grant McCasland said he was impressed with how tight their huddles were in the Arizona game when they were down big late in the second half. That kind of stuff shows that Hodge's messaging is working and the buy-in is real.

It remains to be seen just how successful Hodge can be in Morgantown, but writing him off after 24 games with a team he threw together over the summer is a bit premature.

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