‘I Gotta Do a Better Job’: Hodge Takes Accountability After WVU Basketball Loss

Several issues limited WVU basketball in its 75-66 loss to Wake Forest in the GoMart Holiday Hoopfest Saturday. Among the downfalls, head coach Ross Hodge emphasized turnovers and defense in the postgame press conference.

“You can’t give up 41 points in the second half and turn it over and miss shots and miss free throws,” Hodge said. “You can’t do all of that. You can actually do one or the other and that’s just something that I think we’ve gotta continue to learn and grow from.”

WVU turned the ball over 17 times in the game, making the way for 25 extra points for Wake Forest.

When evaluating the team’s performance, Hodge addressed effort and personnel along with how to decide when to make changes as a coach.

“Are you doing what we’re asking you to do hard enough? That’s where you usually start. And then I think the next part in the checklist is like, okay, then you change personnel to see if the personnel can do what you’re asking them to do… If you’re doing it hard enough and you’re trying it with different people and it’s still not working, then maybe you’ve gotta try to do something else,” Hodge said.

As the team is still working out kinks on both sides of the court, Hodge shouldered blame in the matchup as well.

“I gotta do a better job. it’s easy to point the finger at at the players, it’s easy to blame them, but I gotta take accountability too and I’ve gotta do a better job of putting these guys in better positions again, where they can play to their strengths and try to try to keep them away from having to play to some of their weaknesses,” Hodge said.

WVU basketball will take the court again at 7 p.m. on Tuesday when it hosts Little Rock.

Find more coverage of WVU basketball at WV Sports Now.