MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia will be playing its first closed scrimmage against Maryland this Saturday in Morgantown. 

In the past, information about these games was limited just to confirming the opponent, but the NCAA, realizing the futility of this, has now removed most of its restrictions.

When Ross Hodge was coaching at North Texas, he said they would sometimes go to great lengths to keep information under wraps so it wouldn't end up on Jon Rothstein's or Jeff Goodman's X timelines.

The reason Hodge was so adamant about keeping things under wraps was because he didn't want to irritate the teams they were playing and run the risk of losing those types of scrimmages in the future.

"The thing I've learned now is these things are getting out, whether you want it to get out or not," he chuckled. "We had a harder time when we were at North Texas getting marquee scrimmages and exhibitions, so we were always very cognizant of not wanting it to get out, out of respect. 

"Last year, we scrimmaged SMU, and they were a little banged up, and we scored more than they did. I remember walking off the floor telling my staff, 'Look man, I do not want this out.' We broke down the team and I grabbed my phone, and it was already out," he said. "It didn't even come from us. It's getting out one way or another."

One year, Hodge recalled scrimmaging a really good Mississippi State team and his North Texas players holding their own. The team lost a buzzer beater that could have easily gone the other way, had the play been reviewed.

Then, he took a look at the box score that his sports information director handed him.

"I got the box score, and our starting center had 11 fouls, which probably would have drastically changed the outcome of that game," he laughed. "He probably would have fouled out in the first four minutes. I think we had seven players foul out in last year's SMU game."

So, the message here is no matter what you read on social media late Saturday afternoon about the scrimmage, take it with a grain of salt.

The devil is always in the details.

Hodge said this year's scrimmage with Maryland came about as a result of his longstanding relationship with new Terrapin coach Buzz Williams, going back to their junior college days in Texas.

"They say there is always a West Virginia connection, but in this case it's a Texas connection," he explained. "Buzz is from Texas. He was a (graduate assistant) at Kingsville and coach (Johnny) Estelle, on our staff, was a GA there. Johnny was the head coach at Navarro Junior College and Buzz was also a student assistant at Navarro, as was Sam Walker, whom I worked for and played for at Texas A&M-Commerce.

"There were a lot of connections, historically, and then Sean McClurg, our video coordinator, I think was a student assistant for Buzz at Virginia Tech," Hodge continued. "With the location and the proximity of both programs, we thought it would be easy travel and good games, so we'll return it to their place next year."

Hodge said the lineup he will use on Saturday will be a combination of rewarding good play during the preseason and getting an idea of the combinations he wants to use during the regular season.

The coach indicated St. Bonaventure transfer Chance Moore, who must sit out the first five regular season games to satisfy NCAA requirements, will see action on Saturday.

"We'll treat it like we're going to have him, and we'll play him like any other normal game throughout the regular season," Hodge explained.

Unlike regular season games, the coaches will communicate beforehand how they want to set up the scrimmage and perhaps some things they plan to do. That way neither team is caught completely off guard, with both benefiting from the scrimmage.

"You are not walking into it completely blind – not to the extent of what you would do in a regular season game, but you want to practice your preparation and how you do things so your players and get into some rhythm," Hodge explained. "More than anything, it's not so much what they're doing necessarily, but it's being able to present that to your team to get them used to receiving information, retaining information, game planning a little bit and then having some flexibility within the game if you need to make adjustments as well.

"Largely, coaches are creatures of habit; not all the time, but usually there are going to be some similarities from team to team. You look at coach Williams' teams in the past, they were the best offensive rebounding team in the country last year. They lived at the foul line. They are physical and aggressive and those are not going to change," he added.
Hodge said he will introduce a mock scouting report to his players to get them used to regular season game preparation. 

That began with today's practice.

"There are no secrets once you start playing games," he said. "You might have a couple things up your sleeve in game one or game two, but eventually you are going to be playing against opponents that know what you are going to do, and they are going to have a game plan for what you're trying to do. You kind of want that, too, when playing in exhibitions or scrimmages."

Hodge said Saturday's scrimmage will likely be two 20-minute halves and the score will start over each time.

"Maybe we'll have an additional 10 minutes for some of the guys that didn't get to play as much in the 40 minutes," he said.

Beyond the final score, what Hodge is looking for from his players on Saturday include how they respond to negative plays, who will match Maryland's physicality and how they support each other?

"You always want to win, but personally, but I would like to see that we have really tight huddles in free throw situations and making sure our benches are into it," he concluded.

Those are the things that likely wouldn't get out on social media anyway.