Photo by: WVU Athletic Communications
With Summer On-Court Work Complete, Hodge Happy With Team's Progress
July 31, 2026 11:36 AM | Men's Basketball
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Now one day away from August, and roughly two weeks before the start of the fall semester, West Virginia men's basketball coach Ross Hodge says his players have completed the team activity portion of its summer.
After hitting the pause button for a couple of weeks, the guys will resume on-court work once the fall semester begins.
In the meantime, Hodge and his coaching staff will continue to monitor the legal happenings in various states as a result of the new NCAA "five-for-five" ruling enacted earlier this summer that allows players five years of continuous eligibility for up to five seasons, which directly impacts those from the class of 2022.
The ruling is slated to be implemented on Aug. 1. However, court cases challenging blanket denials could add a new pool of players, one of those being 6-foot-7 Boise State transfer Javan Buchanan, who signed with West Virginia last spring and is seeking an additional year of eligibility.
Buchanan is one of four, four-star transfer portal additions the Mountaineers signed during the offseason. The others are Butler combo guard Finley Bizjack, St. John's shooting guard Joson Sanon and Georgia Tech center Mouhamed Sylla, once considered a top-20 prep prospect in the Class of 2025 coming out of Bella Vista Prep in Phoenix, Arizona.
Hodge's transfer portal class was rated 25th nationally by On3.com and his freshman class includes five-star recruit Miles Sadler, considered among the most coveted prep prospects to sign with West Virginia in recent years.
Sadler is one of four former Bella Vista players on the Mountaineer roster this season.
Combining transfer portal and prep additions, recruiting experts rate West Virginia's 2026 haul among the 15-best in the country.
That has lots of basketball people taking notice.
CBS Sports college basketball insider Jon Rothstein has labeled West Virginia one of his "sleepers" in the Big 12 this season, as did national basketball analyst Jeff Goodman in a recent Field of 68 Podcast.
Based on the roster Hodge has assembled, Goodman has West Virginia slotted sixth in the Big 12 behind Houston, Arizona, Kansas, Iowa State and Texas Tech to start the season despite the Mountaineers having just one returning player – sophomore guard Amir Jenkins, who successfully underwent a second shoulder surgery in July.
Hodge admits he likes the roster of players he and his staff have assembled to this point.
"Obviously, I wouldn't have brought them here if I didn't think they were capable of competing for championships," he said yesterday during a 50-minute interview session with local media inside the Basketball Practice Facility. "I know how difficult it is to win a Big 12 game, or a Big 12 championship, but I believe in this group.
"We've got a good mix of youth and talent and experience at the Power Five level," he continued. "I definitely feel like we have enough to compete on a night-in, night-out basis. Then, it just comes down to a lot of the little things like your health and a little bit of luck. I like the group we have, and they've done nothing to dispel any of the things in the summer that would make you feel any worse about it."
Of course, Buchanan's eligibility status for this season remains at the forefront. Hodge calls Buchanan a "versatile wing" who can play inside or outside with "a great understanding of the game" capable of "making things easier" for his teammates.
How these various legal decisions play out will determine the remaining two spots on West Virginia's 2026-27 roster. There are cases currently working their way through the court systems in Ohio, North Carolina, Tennessee and Colorado, with more likely forthcoming ahead of the deadline when the new rule is supposed to be implemented.
How this ultimately gets resolved could conceivably introduce another pool of talented players right before the start of the fall semester.
"You never want to say never, but I'd think you'd probably want to look to start internally with players out of that pool that maybe you have some familiarity with and who have familiarity with you before you bring in someone new," Hodge said. "There is a chance that the market could get inundated with a lot of talent here late in the summer."
Being a former junior college coach, Hodge is familiar with full roster reboots and has developed a unique perspective of team building.
"Each team is going to be a little bit different," he admitted. "The personalities are going to be a little different and your strengths and weaknesses as a basketball team are probably going to look a little different, especially in this time period.
"I don't know if you can get too married to a specific way," he added. "You kind of have your core beliefs and core principles and the things you think win basketball games, but how you achieve those are probably going to look a little different from year to year.
"Some of it is you are doing a lot of observing yourself as a coach," Hodge mentioned. "You are watching these guys play and play together and you're trying to figure out, 'Okay, what are their individual strengths and what are their collective strengths?'"
Player acquisition in 2026 must consider his individual value to a team, in addition to his overall talent.
Hodge explains.
"There are a lot of layers to it nowadays, not only the factors of trying to get the best talent that you can get, but there is the financial component of it, and while there is not a hard cap in college athletics, you are capped to a certain extent and to a certain degree," he conceded. "If you look at our models, they follow the professional model fairly close as far as your tiers of investment and the players that you end up getting.
"As your roster starts coming together, let's say you got your backcourt early and you desperately needed a center. Well the value of needing that position is greater – maybe even more than the market says for that position, but you need that position, so it becomes more valuable," he said.
It's a new environment and a new world, for sure, and based on the recruiting success Hodge and his staff enjoyed last spring, they appear to be navigating it effectively.
When team activities resume in a couple weeks, Hodge said things will pick up significantly.
"The tolerance level for making mistakes shortens. As I told the team, 'You need to start making new mistakes. You can't keep making the same ones,'" he concluded.
Basketball season tickets are currently on sale through WVUGAME.com. Be sure to explore the various options and packages available as the regular season approaches.
After hitting the pause button for a couple of weeks, the guys will resume on-court work once the fall semester begins.
In the meantime, Hodge and his coaching staff will continue to monitor the legal happenings in various states as a result of the new NCAA "five-for-five" ruling enacted earlier this summer that allows players five years of continuous eligibility for up to five seasons, which directly impacts those from the class of 2022.
The ruling is slated to be implemented on Aug. 1. However, court cases challenging blanket denials could add a new pool of players, one of those being 6-foot-7 Boise State transfer Javan Buchanan, who signed with West Virginia last spring and is seeking an additional year of eligibility.
Buchanan is one of four, four-star transfer portal additions the Mountaineers signed during the offseason. The others are Butler combo guard Finley Bizjack, St. John's shooting guard Joson Sanon and Georgia Tech center Mouhamed Sylla, once considered a top-20 prep prospect in the Class of 2025 coming out of Bella Vista Prep in Phoenix, Arizona.
Hodge's transfer portal class was rated 25th nationally by On3.com and his freshman class includes five-star recruit Miles Sadler, considered among the most coveted prep prospects to sign with West Virginia in recent years.
Sadler is one of four former Bella Vista players on the Mountaineer roster this season.
Combining transfer portal and prep additions, recruiting experts rate West Virginia's 2026 haul among the 15-best in the country.
That has lots of basketball people taking notice.
CBS Sports college basketball insider Jon Rothstein has labeled West Virginia one of his "sleepers" in the Big 12 this season, as did national basketball analyst Jeff Goodman in a recent Field of 68 Podcast.
Based on the roster Hodge has assembled, Goodman has West Virginia slotted sixth in the Big 12 behind Houston, Arizona, Kansas, Iowa State and Texas Tech to start the season despite the Mountaineers having just one returning player – sophomore guard Amir Jenkins, who successfully underwent a second shoulder surgery in July.
Hodge admits he likes the roster of players he and his staff have assembled to this point.
"Obviously, I wouldn't have brought them here if I didn't think they were capable of competing for championships," he said yesterday during a 50-minute interview session with local media inside the Basketball Practice Facility. "I know how difficult it is to win a Big 12 game, or a Big 12 championship, but I believe in this group.
"We've got a good mix of youth and talent and experience at the Power Five level," he continued. "I definitely feel like we have enough to compete on a night-in, night-out basis. Then, it just comes down to a lot of the little things like your health and a little bit of luck. I like the group we have, and they've done nothing to dispel any of the things in the summer that would make you feel any worse about it."
Of course, Buchanan's eligibility status for this season remains at the forefront. Hodge calls Buchanan a "versatile wing" who can play inside or outside with "a great understanding of the game" capable of "making things easier" for his teammates.
How these various legal decisions play out will determine the remaining two spots on West Virginia's 2026-27 roster. There are cases currently working their way through the court systems in Ohio, North Carolina, Tennessee and Colorado, with more likely forthcoming ahead of the deadline when the new rule is supposed to be implemented.
How this ultimately gets resolved could conceivably introduce another pool of talented players right before the start of the fall semester.
"You never want to say never, but I'd think you'd probably want to look to start internally with players out of that pool that maybe you have some familiarity with and who have familiarity with you before you bring in someone new," Hodge said. "There is a chance that the market could get inundated with a lot of talent here late in the summer."
Being a former junior college coach, Hodge is familiar with full roster reboots and has developed a unique perspective of team building.
"Each team is going to be a little bit different," he admitted. "The personalities are going to be a little different and your strengths and weaknesses as a basketball team are probably going to look a little different, especially in this time period.
"I don't know if you can get too married to a specific way," he added. "You kind of have your core beliefs and core principles and the things you think win basketball games, but how you achieve those are probably going to look a little different from year to year.
"Some of it is you are doing a lot of observing yourself as a coach," Hodge mentioned. "You are watching these guys play and play together and you're trying to figure out, 'Okay, what are their individual strengths and what are their collective strengths?'"
Player acquisition in 2026 must consider his individual value to a team, in addition to his overall talent.
Hodge explains.
"There are a lot of layers to it nowadays, not only the factors of trying to get the best talent that you can get, but there is the financial component of it, and while there is not a hard cap in college athletics, you are capped to a certain extent and to a certain degree," he conceded. "If you look at our models, they follow the professional model fairly close as far as your tiers of investment and the players that you end up getting.
"As your roster starts coming together, let's say you got your backcourt early and you desperately needed a center. Well the value of needing that position is greater – maybe even more than the market says for that position, but you need that position, so it becomes more valuable," he said.
It's a new environment and a new world, for sure, and based on the recruiting success Hodge and his staff enjoyed last spring, they appear to be navigating it effectively.
When team activities resume in a couple weeks, Hodge said things will pick up significantly.
"The tolerance level for making mistakes shortens. As I told the team, 'You need to start making new mistakes. You can't keep making the same ones,'" he concluded.
Basketball season tickets are currently on sale through WVUGAME.com. Be sure to explore the various options and packages available as the regular season approaches.
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