Ross Hodge Views Players Era Tournament as ‘Learning Opportunity’ for WVU Basketball

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – After an expected 3-0 start from the WVU basketball team, the first real challenge awaits on Tuesday in the Players Era Championship.

WVU will play three games in three days, with some high-major matchups potentially in the mix. While head coach Ross Hodge believes every day is an opportunity to learn about his team, a tournament environment will provide a different perspective.

“Every day is a learning opportunity for, not only myself, but for the players and the program. Again, it just kind of creates a new- just a new level of learning because it will be a three-day tournament,” Hodge said following Thursday night’s 75-61 win over Mercer.

“You will have quick turnarounds. You will have to process information and wash information and process new information super quickly.”

“That’s where you hope your core principles, your core belief system of, ‘hey, this is who we are, this is what we’re doing. This is what we’re going to hang our hat on.’ You hope that those things are good enough to kind of anchor you in these early games and really just as a group figuring out how to win games and being in different situations, different responses … but the bottom line is you just got to try to figure out a way to win some of them knowing that you’re nowhere near what you’re going to be,” Hodge added.

This will be WVU’s first appearance in a Players Era tournament, and Hodge says the team is excited to showcase its talent on the national level.

“It’s an incredible opportunity. Super thankful and grateful to be a part of it,” Hodge said. “I think it’ll be a, you know, top-of-the-mind awareness type of tournament. It’ll have good top-of-the-mind awareness for our university, for the state,  coupled with really good competition. And I know our guys are looking forward to it, and I’m looking forward to the challenge as well.”

WVU basketball will face its first major challenge of the season next time out when it plays Auburn in the Players Era Championship tournament at 11:59 p.m. Tuesday in Las Vegas.

Find more coverage of  WVU basketball at WV Sports Now.