Ross Hodge knew that the only option for him was to finish out his responsibilities at North Texas prior to immersing himself fully into his new role as the head coach at West Virginia.
That naturally led to some questions about recruiting with the transfer portal open and how Hodge would be able to manage that while leading the Mean Green.
Turns out, it was business as usual.
Even if Hodge had remained at North Texas, the reality is that the majority of his team would not have returned given the nature of the current landscape college athletics. That means that his time would have already been spent the majority of his time outside of game planning on recruiting potential new players for next season.
It’s no different than what teams like Houston or Florida are going through at the moment while playing in the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament while keeping an eye on the next season.
“If you’re making it a pie, you were going to spend 30-percent of your time preparing for your games. The other 70-percent of the time you were going to be recruiting the portal,” he said.
That includes making phone calls, setting up visits and getting a head start on what comes next. For Hodge, that is of course leading the West Virginia basketball program, so there wasn’t as much of an adjustment as some would think when it comes to the recruiting element.
“I know it's probably like, especially for the traditionalists, it's probably like kind of weird, but I wasn't doing anything different than what I would have been able to do if it, if I wasn't here, if I was still there,” he said.
That’s especially true with an NCAA dead period in effect April 3-10 which means no official visits on campus or coaches going out to see prospects. That doesn’t probit conversation, but that also isn’t too much different than what Hodge had been doing prior to the start of the dead period.
“You were making recruiting phone calls, and you're talking about West Virginia basketball, and how incredible this is, and the opportunity, and there's a lot of excitement around it, and we'll hit the ground running here,” Hodge said.
One thing that Hodge has discovered already in his conversations is the power of the brand.
“I can tell you I was blown away at the power of the brand of West Virginia basketball across the entire nation and it resonates with people,” he said.
In terms of recruiting, Hodge feels completely comfortable recruiting at a national level and his time at North Texas and junior colleges have prepared him for the shifts in roster management. During his time at the junior college level, Hodge held an east coast trip every season where he would travel through areas such as Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Jersey and New York to find talent.
“Even if you look at our roster there at North Texas, since we've been there, we've had players from the East Coast, we've had players from New York, players from Philadelphia, players from Florida, players from Africa, players from everywhere, so it's about relationships, and we'll work really hard to improve the relationships that we don't have and meet new ones,” he said.
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