Finishing Season With UNT Was ‘Non-Negotiable’ for Ross Hodge

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Ross Hodge found himself in a truly rare position over the last week, carrying the hopes of two fanbases on his shoulders.

Hodge was announced as WVU’s new head basketball coach last Wednesday but was still finishing up the season with North Texas playing in the NIT.

“We were playing Oklahoma State (on Tuesday) and (the hiring) wasn’t officially done yet, but it had started looking like it was going to be that way,” Hodge said during his introductory press conference at WVU Thursday morning. “We had a nine-point lead with a minute left and I thought for a second I was going to be the only coach in the country to simultaneously get crushed by two fanbases at the same time.”

The Mean Green held on to beat Oklahoma State 61-59 and advanced to the NIT semifinals, where they fell to UC Irvine earlier this week. Hodge spent the seven days between the two games essentially serving as the head coach for both teams, helping UNT prepare for the next round while getting started on recruiting and putting a staff together for WVU.

“I know for the traditionalists it’s kind of weird, but I wasn’t doing anything different than what I would have been able to do,” Hodge said. “We were preparing for our games when we had to and we were working the phones and trying to set things up.”

It was an atypical setup for a coach moving onto a new job, but finishing UNT’s season was a non-negotiable for Hodge and something West Virginia athletic director Wren Baker was willing to allow.

“We really wanted to get a coach named and he really wanted North Texas to be able to figure out what’s next for them, but one thing that was non-negotiable was finishing out the journey with his team,” Baker said. “That was something we really respected and admired throughout the process.”

Hodge said that time really would not have been any different if he hadn’t accepted the WVU job and was returning to North Texas next year.

“Whether it was us or Florida or Houston or anybody still playing, you were going to spend probably 30% of your time on preparing for your games,” Hodge explained. “The other 70% of your time you were going to be recruiting the portal and you were going to be making phone calls and line-up visits.”

The transfer portal opened on March 24, the unofficial start of the offseason. Hodge said whether he was putting a roster together for WVU or UNT, his last couple of weeks would have looked about the same.

“Ironically, if the job change hadn’t happened and I was coaching North Texas, there’s a good chance that 85-90% of that team was going to be in the portal or out of eligibility,” Hodge said. We may have had one or two players back. That’s the reality of modern college athletics.

“It didn’t feel that different because you were making recruiting phone calls. We’ll hit the ground running here next week.”

Thursday was the first day of a week-long dead period for recruiting, and Hodge said he’ll be ready to hit the ground running when it ends next Friday. Even with that week of overlap, Hodge said he doesn’t feel like he’s behind schedule at WVU.

For a related story, Ross Hodge has no timeline for filling WVU coaching staff.