Exclusive: Ross Hodge Breaks Down Mindset in Building WVU Basketball Roster

PITTSBURGH – WVU basketball head coach Ross Hodge is in the midst of a roster overhaul after losing six players to graduation and five to the transfer portal.

While having six seniors on the team may sound like a challenge in preparing the next year’s roster, Hodge said knowing how much the team would lose to the portal helped him and his staff prepare for recruiting.

“Other than maybe a couple of guys, you knew there wasn’t a lot to figure out with your current roster, like you knew you were gonna lose a lot and you had to get a lot. And so we were able to be aggressive and really had the perfect combination of what the players were looking for, which is time and opportunity,” Hodge said in an interview with WV Sports Now’s Mike Asti at the Pittsburgh stop of the Coaches Caravan.

Time and opportunity were selling points for the players, but time is a luxury Hodge did not have last offseason. After a full year at the helm of WVU, he said a benefit is being able to put together a freshman recruiting class.

“I think one of the biggest things with, with this group that’s incoming that we had that we didn’t have the previous time was just time,” Hodge said. “And so, the ability to sign a good high school class in the fall kind of gets you off to a good start … You sign one of the best point guards in the country (Miles Sadler), Aliou Dioum, And that helps your transfer portal recruiting.”

Unlike last year, Hodge has pulled in talent from Power Four and high major conferences this portal season. Hodge said he believes that also comes from having more time as a staff to prepare ahead of the portal window.

“It wasn’t so much that we just said, ‘hey, we got to go out and we’re making it a mission to, to sign only Power Four talent’ … because at the end of the day, you’re trying to get the best players you can at the time. And I think it was more of just having boots on the ground for an entire year at West Virginia as opposed to coming in the midst of everything the previous year,” Hodge said.

Find more coverage of WVU basketball at WV Sports Now.