MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Based on everything you've read and heard about West Virginia's new men's basketball coach Ross Hodge, his teams have won more than 80% of their games because they've been really good at keeping other teams from scoring.

Whether at Texas A&M-Commerce, Paris Junior College, Midland College, Southern Mississippi, Colorado State, Arkansas State or, most recently, North Texas, he's been at places where you don't necessarily get first pick for your rosters.

He mentioned earlier today during his introductory press conference as the Mountaineers' 24^th head coach that if he had remained at North Texas, he was going to have to replace 85 to 90% of his team.

Therefore, as a coach, you better be resourceful. You better play a style that is easily adaptable and matches the types of players you can recruit. At the places he's been so far, Hodge's way of accomplishing this is by trying to stop the other team first.

As they say, defense always travels.

"Historically, you look at the teams that win at this time of year (it) is because they're rooted in defense, especially in the Big 12," he told a packed team room at the Milan Puskar Center Thursday morning. "It's not surprising at all. You can look it up. When Kansas was winning the Big 12, they had the best defenses in the league. Houston has won the Big 12 recently, and they've been the best defensive team in the league.

"I always worked for defensive-minded coaches," he elaborated. "Coach (Bill) Foy, my junior college coach, who I also worked for, he was an Indiana guy, so he was familiar with Bob Knight coming from that region, and that was his deal. I wasn't a great player, but there was a certain amount of grit, toughness, competitiveness and fight that I had to show up with every single day knowing that I wasn't going to out-athlete anybody."

Hodge continued.

"Some of it was born from my playing days and the guys that I worked for and then just being committed to giving our teams the best chance to win and win consistently. Not only has our scoring defense been really good, but we've gone back and forth with Houston having the best road winning percentage in the country the last eight years," he said.

"If you are going to win on the road, you better be tough, you better be physical, you better be able to defend and you better have elite guard play. We've had some of the best guards in the country."

The numbers certainly bear that out. For the last 10 years, men's college basketball teams ranking No. 1 in points allowed have averaged 28.6 wins per season.

This year's top defensive team Houston and its reliance on elite athletes and ball pressure triangulation is one of four still playing this weekend. Duke, ranked seventh in scoring defense, is another.

Connecticut ranked ninth in scoring defense to win last year's national championship.

If you go through the modern history of West Virginia basketball, its best teams have been the ones most capable of slowing down others. When things went stale for Bob Huggins after the Final Four campaign in 2010, he felt his program needed a jolt, so he introduced "Press Virginia," and it completely changed the trajectory of Mountaineer basketball.

John Beilein was probably better known for his motion offense that relied on 3-point shooting, but the unusual 1-3-1 zone that he used on the other end of the floor helped his teams consistently rank among the top 50 scoring defenses in the country.

Even Gale Catlett, who earned a reputation for having elaborate plays and up-tempo offenses, coached some of the best defenses in school history during the 1980s when his teams played in six NCAA tournaments from 1982-89.

Catlett's '87 squad that was 23-8 finished the year ranked sixth in the country in team defense, allowing just 60.7 points per game, and eight out of the 10 years in that decade his teams finished among the nation's top 100 scoring defenses. 

"We certainly plan on bringing that style of basketball here," Hodge noted. "You are not always going to shoot it the best or have the best offensive nights, but if you get down there and be committed to defend, you will always have a chance to win."

Hodge mentioned Grant McClasland, whose Texas Tech team advanced to this year's Elite Eight, and Larry Eustachy, as two important influences on his coaching career.

"I've been really fortunate to work for some elite coaches. Larry Eustachy won the Big 12 twice in a row at Iowa State, and Grant McCasland, in my opinion, is one of the best coaches in the country," he said. "Dating back to my younger time period, Bill Foy won a national junior college championship and Sam Walker was the all-time winningest coach at Texas A&M-Commerce. I've been really, really fortunate to be around coaches that really mix it all together."

Hodge said Eustachy was a master at simplicity.

"His teams were so incredibly tough. They weren't going to turn the ball over and they were going to get back every single time on defense," he explained. "That's what it was. We didn't spend a lot of time trying to score on a baseline out of bounds or run this tricky play. His tricky play was, 'We're going to go rebound every time this ball goes up, we're going to go grab the ball with two hands and we're going to put the ball into the basket.'"

West Virginia director of athletics Wren Baker admitted this morning his preference for defensive-oriented basketball coaches. His experiences in and around the game have led him to this conclusion.

When Baker called McCasland to talk about Hodge, McCasland told him he was ready. Then, when he called Dusty May, Baker was told the same thing.

"He's ready."

Now, it's time to rally behind Hodge and help him reestablish the Mountaineer basketball tradition in the direction that he's planning to take it. Although rooted in defense, I suspect the types of players he can recruit here will ultimately determine the exact course. If it leads to lots of wins and NCAA Tournament appearances, then it won't take long for everyone to hop on board.

The guy Hodge is replacing spent just six days short of a year in Morgantown, so naturally, Mountaineer fans are eager to have a coach who is willing to put down some roots.

Hodge addressed that one head on.

"This move was not an easy move for me," he admitted. "We talked a lot as a family. We had deep, meaningful relationships in Denton, and that's something that is really important to us. 

"People are important to us."

Just as the basketball tradition here is really important to the people of West Virginia. 

That's something about which all Mountaineers can be pretty defensive.