Ross Hodge

The West Virginia Mountaineers (4-0) handed the Pitt Panthers (3-1) their first loss of the season with a resounding 71-49 victory Thursday night.

West Virginia head coach Ross Hodge met with the media following the game and discussed his first Backyard Brawl win, freshman forward DJ Thomas’ 10-point night, the defensive effort and more.

Opening statement

It felt we did a really good job of executing what we asked our guys to do. Pitt had came into the game making more free throws than their opponents have even attempted. So, we knew keeping them off the foul line was going to be big and they were plus 13 in the rebounding margin, so we really challenged our guys to try and defend without fouling and then clean up the defensive rebounding. We talked about that in this room before. A lot of that is a by product of keeping the ball in front of you, keeping it out of the paint.

I feel like we really defended well all night long. They made some really tough shots to start the game. I thought we had good looks on offense that just didn’t go down early.

DJ Thomas, I mean, a freshman to step into that environment, I don’t think he called bank, but it was an early tip so maybe the banks were still open. He really settled in and made some good plays. Him and (freshman guard) Amir (Jenkins) both. We have a very mature team, but the freshman, they’re as poised and as mature freshman you can come across.

Also I challenged our team because, fortunately, been in this situation in every game we’ve played, dating back to our closed door scrimmages, we’ve had a couple possession lead in the second half. Coming into it, we didn’t start halves great, but I thought we started that half really well and extended that run. They made an answer, we settled in, and finished the game the right way.

Defensive effort

There were times we were able to squeeze the floor in our ball screen coverages, and then when the pass was made out there, we were still able to get there and that’s what you want to do. You don’t want to give them that catch and shoot three, but there was times where we able to do both. We were really able to shrink the floor and then when they did try to skip over the top we were able to get deflections and get out in some run outs.

The 18-2 run to end the first half

We were getting some pretty good looks it just didn’t go down during that time period. I didn’t think we were playing that bad and I thought they made some very difficult [shots]. They made some step back threes in our face and some contested jump shots – those are not easy shots. And I think, going through some of those earlier games, even though not the magnitude of a game like this, you still feel that game pressure, maybe in a weird way, maybe even more when you get into those type game. I think that can benefit you in the long run. Even when they made that run in the second half it wasn’t like a lot of panic in the huddle. I think DJ making a couple of threes in that stretch gives you a collective sigh of relief.