Report: Ross Hodge emerges as 'serious candidate' for West Virginia job

The West Virginia Mountaineers are on the search for their fourth head basketball coach in as many seasons. Now, according to a report by Jon Rothstein, North Texas Mean Green head coach Ross Hodge has emerged as a serious candidate for the job.

At this point, nothing is final in the coaching search. However, West Virginia athletic director Wren Baker does have a familiarity with Ross Hodge. The pair worked together at North Texas, where Baker worked before getting to Morgantown.

This season, in particular, has been a good one for North Texas. The Mean Green are currently in the NIT semifinals, having already won three games in that tournament. This season, Hodge has led North Texas to a 27-8 record and a 14-4 record in AAC play, which was second place in the regular season standings. That includes a win over Big 12 school Oklahoma State.

Ross Hodge is in his second season as the head coach at North Texas, going 46-23 overall in his time there. Prior to that, he had also been the associate head coach at North Texas, and he would replace Grant McCasland when he left for Texas Tech.

Beyond his time at North Texas, Hodge has made several other stops as an assistant coach. On top of that, he had stops at multiple schools at the NJCAA level where he was the head coach. While at Midland College, he even had a runner-up finish.

Over the past few seasons, the West Virginia job has seemingly become an unstable one. Bob Huggins coached the team from 2007 through 2023, but his tenure ended when he resigned following an arrest. Since then, Josh Eilert replaced him as an interim coach for one season before Darian DeVries came in to be the full-time head coach. The hope had been that he would fill that role for the foreseeable future, but chose to leave and become the Indiana head coach after one season.

One thing DeVries did do was get West Virginia competitive following a difficult 2023-24 season. At 19-13 overall and 10-10 in Big 12 play, the Mountaineers were just short of making the NCAA Tournament.

Regardless if the next West Virginia head coach is Ross Hodge or another candidate, the program will look for long-term stability in that role. They’ll also look to get competitive in the national landscape again after missing the NCAA Tournament in three out of the last four seasons and failing to get to the Sweet Sixteen or better since 2018.