Ross Hodge press conference summary: 2-27
West Virginia head coach Ross Hodge addressed the media ahead of the BYU game and WVSports.com provides a summary of what was said.
—AJ Dybantsa is impressive with his talent but how he commits to his teammates is impressive as well. He is impressive in every facet of the game and can distort you in ways that other people can’t because of his size and fluidity. He can create mismatches because of how he has the ball in his hands. BYU does a good job putting guys around him and he has gotten better as a facilitator. At this stage, you can label him as a point guard because the ball is in his hands 60-percent of the time. His decision-making and reads have gotten better as well. One diet isn’t going to be the answer when it comes to defending him even with smaller guys getting under him or bigger or physical guys on him. West Virginia has to do a good job of mixing up coverages and trying to keep him off the foul line. You can’t give them multiple chances on the same possession.
–The question and the challenge playing a player like Dybantsa is do you play him individually and live with if he gets his numbers or do you try to shrink gaps and see if the other guys will make shots. He has shown the ability to beat you both ways.
–The morale of the team is good after the initial aftermath of disappointment. Hodge said from a leadership standpoint it’s hard to fall in the trap if you win you’re great, if you lose you’re terrible. This team has been in one-possession games this year that could have gone the other way and these past three games could have easily gone West Virginia’s way. But the question is do you have the emotional maturity and can find the level of excitement to be in the right place? This group is mature.
–The Big 12 is the third best basketball league on the planet. Hodge said they’ve played three of the top five players in college basketball and then you throw in all the other players across the league that will be in the NBA and it’s incredible. The challenges are night-in, night-out but if you like opportunities and challenges you’re in the right league.
–Hodge thought that it was their worst defensive half of the season against Oklahoma State in the first half and if you strip it down even further the end of the last four minutes was the issue. The second half defense was really good and that’s what got West Virginia back in the lead. That was the first time that it was hard to pinpoint things wrong they did on the defensive end of the floor late in that game. Hodge felt they had some good defensive possessions and Oklahoma State just made some difficult shots. You have to tip your hat a little bit in those instances but in the first half the point of attack defense wasn’t good enough guarding the ball and some of that was in transition.
–Hodge said that Oklahoma State is a very good offensive team and what can happen in games like that is West Virginia was scoring the ball easily and then you can get lulled into trying to play that way. That was more of the issue.
–Hodge said if you’re going to pass the ball ahead and Honor Huff is open you want to shoot the ball. What can’t slip up is the defensive intensity. BYU is still a great offensive team and have two of the best players on the floor in the Big 12 so it will be a challenge.
–College basketball is a copy cat industry and trends so there’s not anything you see some of the NBA coaches that are in college do differently outside maybe manipulating some of the spacing at times but nothing majorly different.
–Hodge wouldn’t say the tempo affected his team’s defense but for a team that isn’t used to scoring the ball easily but it was the ease at some of the shots that were going down against Oklahoma State as opposed to the tempo and the timing of the shots themselves.
–So much of it is who you’re playing that can dictate stuff and how your opponent is playing you. Oklahoma State double teamed Harlan Obioha and West Virginia has been able to generate good shots out of double teams. Hodge always wants his players to shoot open shots but some of the lack of aggression is when am I open and when am I not and some of that is determined by how you’re being played.
–Hodge said you have to over communicate and echo relaying so his team knows what they’re supposed to be doing. It is very important especially when it’s in close game situations on the defensive end. Sometimes at home it’s harder to communicate defensively and calling out your coverage so can you communicate clearly with each other to know what you’re doing.
–Without Richie Saunders they’ve done a good job of reinventing themselves on the fly. There are certain actions they would run for him but his experience as a whole and his physicality and what he meant to that program it is hard to replace.
–Hodge said even when he was at the mid-major level he knew what it was to spend too much time on an opinion that he doesn’t have much control over. You know what the criteria is for being an at-large team and there’s some level of subjectivity to that. One year he was at Colorado State and had one of the best RPI’s in the history of that and he’s been on the side where he got at-large bids as well.
–To the credit of BYU, this wasn’t the first time that the Cougars have had a big deficit and responded. In some cases they won the game and others they haven’t. You get a chance to find out people and programs and adversity and they’ve responded in those moments. It sounds familiar to West Virginia.
–Hodge said some of it was they’ve now played 28 games together and there is a standard they’ve embraced on defense and if they see film on some levels they can communicate to themselves the mistakes that are being made and the areas they came up short.
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