MORGANTOWN — Regardless of how the finale is eventually written, whether it is with postseason triumph or heartbreak, Ross Hodge’s first season as WVU’s men’s basketball coach bucked a great trend in basketball.
We never really knew – from one game to the next – who these Mountaineers were.
That would have likely driven former Arizona Cardinals football coach Dennis Green crazy, too. You’ve likely seen Green’s rant about the Chicago Bears back in the day on YouTube.
“The Bears are who we thought they were,” Green screamed. “They are who we thought they were, and we let them off the hook.”
West Virginia’s run in Hodge’s first season, at the very least, has been interesting. Not once, though, did this team – as Green would have said – fall into a comfortable mode of being who we thought they were.
The old saying in sports is you get to a certain spot of each season and the team is what it is. It’s a 3-point shooting team or it dominates in the paint. It needs to play games in the 60s or it goes out and shoots for 90 everytime.
When has anyone this season really known what to expect from the Mountaineers (16-9, 7-5 Big 12), who host Utah (9-16, 1-11) at 8:30 p.m. today inside Hope Coliseum.
That saying you are what you are, Hodge is not a fan.
“Maybe if you were a veteran group that had been around two or three years,” Hodge began. When you’re putting a brand new group together and you’re experiencing a lot of experiences together for the first time, you always have the ability to improve a little bit.
“My mind doesn’t go to we are what we are or it is what it is, because you always have the ability to improve individually and collectively.”
It was easy to say WVU was great after putting up 86 points in a win against Kansas, just as easy to say they stink in bad losses against Arizona and Houston.
The Mountaineers were a bad road team, then all of a sudden, they became a pretty good road team. That road win against UCF last Saturday moved the Mountaineers up eight spots in the NCAA’s NET rankings to No. 54.
No, that doesn’t secure a spot in the NCAA tournament for WVU. It does make the conversation a little more interesting down the stretch.
We went into the season believing it was going to be the Honor Huff and Treysen Eaglestaff show on offense. That turned into the Huff one-man show rather quickly, but then Eaglestaff came on when Huff struggled and Huff did the same when Eaglestaff struggled.
Lately, they’ve both been a little off, so it makes all the sense in the world that Jasper Floyd stole the show against UCF, just as Harlan Obioha did against Pitt and Brennen Lorient did against Kansas and Texas Tech.
It’s been a roller coaster ride of a lifetime for this bunch. Hodge admitted that type of ride is not exactly his favorite, but in terms of riding it out with the group of guys he has, that’s been a pleasant experience.
“There’s certainly a freshness component, even though we’ve been at it a long time,” he said. “All these guys are experiencing the Big 12 for the first time and the challenges that come with that.
“There’s not a lot of mundaneness. I think our guys are excited to be around each other and they enjoy coming to practices. Ultimately, they enjoy trying to get better. That’s the focus in our mind, is how can we get better through these games?”
At one time, the NCAA tournament seemed to be so far off in the distance. Now, it’s a possibility. It’s a possibility that comes with just a handful of games left to prove a point. The majority of those remaining games aren’t against big-time top 25 competition, so the Mountaineers have to hold serve and see what happens.
Maybe, in the end, there will come a sense of consistency for these Mountaineers. Then again, what fun would that be?
“It’s a constant growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset,” Hodge said. “I think a fixed mindset is we are what we are and I am the player I am. A growth mindset is going to be more open to learning and failing, in some instances, and learning from that.”
