Hodge, Floyd Explain What WVU Basketball Needs to Do Against Cincinnati

Round two of WVU Basketball and Cincinnati is set for Thursday when the Mountaineers travel to Fifth-Third Arena to play the Bearcats.

WVU hosted Cincinnati earlier this season, pulling off a close 62-60 win. Most recently, WVU fell 63-53 to the Baylor Bears for their first home loss of the season.

Hodge said two main issues for the game against Baylor that need fixed are the defensive intensity to start the game and taking advantage of defensive stops with points on offense.

“Our defensive intensity to start wasn’t good enough … We were getting stops, but we weren’t able to mirror that with finishing when we got the ball in some areas that we wanted to get it to,” Hodge said in a press conference Tuesday. “And then some, some costly turnovers during that stretch as well.”

As for WVU’s last game against Cincinnati, the Mountaineers gave up 15 turnovers resulting in 18 points for Cincinnati. Combining that with 16 fast break points, senior guard Jasper Floyd said transition defense and taking better care of the ball are key issues to fix before walking into Bearcat territory.

“I think one thing that we struggled with was our transition defense and our turnovers … It was about one-third of their points came off of our turnovers. And so we gotta do a better job of that. They play really well in their building,” Floyd said in a press conference Tuesday.

In general, Hodge added the team’s spacing needs to improve, something the team has not had enough time to work on with a busy away schedule recently.

“When you go back and you look at your good, your good possessions that we’ve been able to have, you’ve usually had really good spacing and that allows players to make decisive and aggressive decisions with the ball,” Hodge said. “And then, you know, the last couple games when we’ve gotten bogged down a little bit, like spacing has been poor and, and how can you use some of the ways that people are guarding you and make sure that your spacing isn’t getting in the way of how you can attack that.”

WVU basketball’s game at Cincinnati will be at 7 p.m. on Thursday.

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