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photo by: Nick Henthorn<\/p>\n
West Virgnia University men\u2019s basketball coach Ross Hodge speaks at the WVU Coaches Caravan\u2019s stop in Wheeling on May 12 inside Oglebay\u2019s Wilson Lodge.<\/p>\n
MORGANTOWN \u2014 There was a time in college basketball when junior college coaches were sort of like being the kid down the block.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s nothing wrong with that kid. It\u2019s perfectly fine to hang out with him after school.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s just when it comes time for the birthday parties, the kid down the block rarely gets an invite.<\/p>\n
That was, at one time, the perception of a junior college hoops coach, the life once had by WVU men\u2019s coach Ross Hodge.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey only have guys for a year, or two,\u201d Hodge said in elaborating on the perception. \u201cCan they really take four-year guys and develop them?\u201d<\/p>\n
Division I coaches have always recruited the heck out of JUCO players, but when it came time to hire a new coach, guys like Hodge rarely got that invite.<\/p>\n
Except now the college sports landscape has completely changed. Every school, no matter if it\u2019s a Power Five school or otherwise, is basically a junior college (a two-year school).<\/p>\n
Players come and go. They hit the transfer portal after one season and rosters have to be retooled on a yearly basis.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, it\u2019s flipped, where every year you\u2019re going to have high-roster turnover,\u201d Hodge continued. \u201cYou\u2019re going to be merging a group of guys together and how quickly can you get them to come together and play for one purpose?\u201d<\/p>\n
Hodge is the fourth WVU head coach in four years. That\u2019s created a sort of revolving door when it\u2019s come to the Mountaineers\u2019 roster.<\/p>\n
From 2023-25, the WVU men\u2019s program had a combined 39 scholarship players. Only nine of those 39 had returned to WVU from the previous season.<\/p>\n
Add in Hodge\u2019s first roster \u2014 currently at 12 scholarship players \u2014 that number is 10 out of 51.<\/p>\n
WVU\u2019s current roster \u2014 Hodge said he\u2019s currently looking at who is still remaining in the portal for a possible addition \u2014 is eight transfers, three incoming freshmen and one holdover in redshirt freshman center Abraham Oyeadier.<\/p>\n
WVU fans will likely need more than a roster to keep everyone straight. Name tags might not even do the trick.<\/p>\n
The players come from all walks of life. All four time zones in the U.S. are covered in their previous college stops and the majority of them have already experienced some level of success.<\/p>\n
Honor Huff is the nation\u2019s leading returner with 131 3-pointers after guiding Chattanooga to the NIT championship last season. Treysen Eaglestaff was the only player in the NCAA last season to have multiple 40-point games. Brenen Lorient was the American Athletic Conference\u2019s Sixth man of the Year last season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have an experience with winning,\u201d is the way Hodge explains it. \u201cThey understand that part of it and what it takes. You\u2019re just trying to get them to understand how are we going to win together.\u201d<\/p>\n
From 2006-11, that was the question Hodge asked himself on a yearly basis.<\/p>\n
As the head coach at Paris Junior College and Midland (Texas) College, Hodge\u2019s rosters were built from scratch year after year.<\/p>\n
What he\u2019s doing now at WVU, it\u2019s not exactly a new experience.<\/p>\n
Hodge won 85% of his games at the JUCO level, including one season at Midland where the Chaps finished as the national runner-up.<\/p>\n
Hodge had eight players on that roster who moved up to Division I, including Guy Edi, who played at Gonzaga, Ty Nurse (Texas Tech), Dwight Miller (Tennessee) and Jamaal Trice (UConn).<\/p>\n
The question now: Can Hodge find that same type of success with a rebuilt roster at the major Division I level?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what he\u2019s been trying to figure out during the team\u2019s summer workouts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s kind of like you\u2019re running marathons at sprinters\u2019 paces,\u201d he said. \u201cEfficient is a good word. You have to be efficient with your time. You have to be purposeful.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur senior class, we only have them for a very short amount of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Subhead: Note<\/p>\n
WVU forward Jackson Fields announced on social media Tuesday he will undergo surgery.<\/p>\n
He was with his WVU teammates at the Best Virginia game in Charleston on Monday with a brace on his left wrist.<\/p>\n
Fields did not say how much time, if any, he was expected to miss this season.<\/p>\n
Fields transferred to WVU this season from Troy, where he averaged 7.9 points and 4.8 rebounds per game last season.<\/p>\n
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