MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Ross Hodge didn’t go so far as to use the coaching cliches that ‘all games count the same’ or ‘all games count as one’ following West Virginia’s 71-49 victory over Pittsburgh in the 192nd edition of the Backyard Brawl. He did however acknowledge that 27 games remain on their regular season schedule and another contest at Hope Coliseum is three days away.
“Two things can be true at once. It can be a really big game. And regardless of what happened with the outcome of it, no trophies have been handed out. We haven’t won the Big 12. We haven’t punched our dance ticket. If we lost this one, the same thing can be true. The same things tomorrow that we need to wake up and get better at, we’ve got to wake up and get better at those,” Hodge said.
“The maturity of our team was kind of on full display. We never shied away, internally or externally, from what this game meant to the state, the people of West Virginia and how passionate it is to this fanbase. We talked about it. We knew it. We didn’t run away from it. We didn’t try to hide from it and we didn’t try to ‘next game’ it.”
“Now makes Monday’s game even bigger,” said WVU senior guard Honor Huff. “It doesn’t seem like it because of the parameters of this game and playing Pitt. But now there’s going to be a target on our back moving forward. You are 4-0. You don’t want to stop winning.”
Senior Harlan Obioha authored his best performance as a Mountaineer with 19-point effort. The 7-foot, 265-pound center went 8-for-9 from the field and 3-for-4 from the free throw line. He also pulled down a team-best six rebounds.
“I have had a good offseason with Coach [Andre] Shaw as well, working down low and he has worked me really well,” Obioha said. “I have just been adding different moves to my bag so that I am not predictable. Tonight, I feel like I kept them on their toes and mixing it up on them.”
“He is usually pretty loud and pretty boisterous,” Hodge said. “He has a great personality and he is very engaging. He’s a fun guy to be around and he loves playing basketball. He has put unseen amounts of hours in to change his body. What you are seeing is the fruits of that labor.”
Following the win, Hodge celebrated in the student section, a moment that entered his mind leading up to tipoff.
“I’m not going to lie. I try to stay pretty locked into the moment of just trying to execute. There were a couple times that my mind wandered during the day and during shootaround that I was like, I want to hear Country Roads in this place with 14,000 people. I want to hear Sweet Caroline with 14,000 people in here.”
“[Hodge] is going to be humble about it, as always. I think he is starting to put the nation on notice and this conference on notice,” said WVU senior guard Jasper Floyd. “I know everybody knows he is a really good coach and he is going to be a really great coach. He just goes out there and he tells us all the time, ‘Most of us made our living and our career off doing things that people didn’t think we would be able to do or beating people that people didn’t think we could beat’. That’s what he has made his career off of. That’s just a testament to his work and his faith in Jesus Christ. I love him. I love Coach Hodge. The main reason I am here right now is because of him.”
West Virginia will host Lafayette Monday to conclude their season-opening stretch of five games at Hope Coliseum.