WVU basketball head coach Ross Hodge is in just his first season leading a program at the Big 12 level, but he can already tell you just how difficult playing night-in and night-out in the conference can be.
The West Virginia Mountaineers moved to 5-3 overall in conference play with a win over the Kansas State Wildcats on Tuesday night, with 10 games remaining on their Big 12 slate. That leaves them sitting in eighth place in what is widely considered the toughest conference in the country in college basketball.
Ross Hodge, WVU Basketball Battle The 'Grind' of The Big 12
The Mountaineers have already faced the current No. 1 team in the nation in Arizona, as well as No. 8 Iowa State, No. 10 Houston, and No. 14 Kansas – they have gone 1-3 in those four contests, with the sole win coming against Kansas. Remaining on the schedule are clashes with No. 11 Texas Tech and No. 13 BYU, both at Hope Coliseum in Morgantown, where WVU is undefeated this season.
And Tuesday's win against the Wildcats was no sure thing, as it was a closely-fought contest coming on the heels of a long road trip that saw the Mountaineers travel to Arizona State last Wednesday before the trip to No. 1 Arizona last Saturday.
And while Hodge isn't making any excuses for his team's shortcomings in conference play so far, he's also up been up front about the toll the league takes on a team – even coming off a win.
"A grind," Hodge said after the Kansas State win. "So many good players. So many good teams. Throw in the travel and multiple time zones, it's a grind. It's unforgiving. You'd better be able to move on, win or lose, pretty quickly."
And while it's likely there are more significant triumphs and heartbreaking losses coming over the next month for the Mountaineers – with fans hoping for more of the former than the latter – Hodge made it clear that in a league like the Big 12, you can't allow any single result to dictate your season moving forward.
"Whether you win like today or you lose a heartbreaker or you get your butt kicked, in this league, you better be able to get to the next thing pretty quickly and process what went wrong and process what went right and get to the next thing," Hodge said.
"We beat Kansas here, and everyone thought they were left for dead. They haven't lost since. We beat Arizona State the other night, and it looked like they were left for dead. The next game, they beat Cincinnati by 15."