Ross Hodge Breaks Down ‘Favorite’ WVU Basketball Win of Season

Not all wins are created equal, and WVU basketball had to grind out a low-scoring game that featured multiple scoring droughts for a 59-54 victory over Kansas State Tuesday. Despite the struggles WVU faced, head coach Ross Hodge called the matchup his favorite win so far this season.

“Obviously we’ve had some big wins as a group, but this was probably my favorite win that we’ve been a part of as a group,” Hodge said in the postgame press conference. “Just because it would’ve been easy to just say, ‘Hey man, it wasn’t our night tonight, we didn’t have it. Oh, I couldn’t make a shot, man…’ And to our guys’ credit man, they found a way they kept believing.”

Part of the reason WVU won was slowing down star junior guard PJ Haggerty, who led the Big 12 in scoring with 23.4 points per game coming into the matchup. The Mountaineers held him scoreless in the first half while being up by six points at halftime. He finished the game with 16 points.

“I mean it’s, it’s one of those things, like you feel good about it, but then you’re also, you’re a little nervous about it. Because you’re up only up six, you’ve done a really good job on him and you just know he’s a great player, that you’re not gonna be able to hold down for two halves. But man, I thought Jasper did a great job on him,” Hodge said.

WVU achieved its halftime lead after overcoming a scoring drought throughout the first 5:49 of the game. However, senior guard Honor Huff made four threes as WVU found enough of a run to have the halftime advantage. Despite the lead, Hodge said there were opportunities to extend it further.

“[We were] able to get honor free in that stretch. He was able to get free and made four threes… Really I thought the end of the first half, like not once we got the 10-point lead, but the end of the first half, not being able to really finish that half and letting them cut it back to six and then the second half when we pushed it back out to 10 and we had kind of like some, some sloppy turnovers and just wasn’t able to extend the game kind of when you had a chance to it,” Hodge said.

WVU basketball will play again at 4 p.m. on Saturday when the Mountaineers host Baylor.

Find more coverage of WVU basketball at WV Sports Now.