Ross Hodge, Players Eager for WVU Basketball Regular Season Debut

WVU basketball played the last of its exhibition games, with a 98-55 victory over Wheeling at Hope Coliseum on Wednesday night. With the season debut happening Monday, head coach Ross Hodge cherished the opportunity to learn about his team beforehand in live game action.

“I learned that we have a group that supports each other … That’s what I was most interested in seeing. How will our huddles be? How will our timeouts be? How will we support each other when things are going good, things are going poorly? … You think you have a sense of those things, but you don’t really know until you’re put out under the lights,” Hodge said in a postgame press conference.

Now that the learning period has concluded, Hodge said the team is ready to open the season against Niagara.

“I think we’re ready for the regular season. I think we’re ready to play. I mean, we’re not anywhere close to a finished product, but I think we have what we need to play the game on Monday,” Hodge added.

Senior guard Finley Bizjack also spoke to the media following the win over Wheeling and mentioned how

“It’s exciting for me because we go so hard in practice. We go hard in the weight room.
Like, they’re on us about like meals and stuff. So there’s not one thing in this program that we haven’t been super strict and like about,” Bizjack said.

“And so finally getting to the games and like we play Monday, then we play Friday, like that just makes me happy. I’m sick of all this getting ready for games and ready to play them.”

Like hodge, Bizjack said the team is a work-in-progress. For Hodge and the rest of the team, the beginning of the season marks the starting point for a steady trend of improvement.

“I’d like to say that we’re not even close to figuring it out. It’s October, so I feel like I’ve been on some teams that have played their best basketball in November, and we want to be playing our best basketball in February, March, and hopefully April,” Bizjack said. “So that’s kind of our goal is to like go here and like end up up there, not really going like here and then down and then up, like steady trend upwards.”

Find more coverage of WVU basketball at WV Sports Now.