West Virginia Ross Hodge reacts during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Texas Tech, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Morgantown, W.Va. (AP Photo/Kathleen Batten)

MORGANTOWN — We don’t know for sure whether or not Ross Hodge is a baseball guy or not, but the WVU men’s head basketball coach threw one heck of a curveball Sunday afternoon, one that seemed extremely odd, but may go a long way in describing his unique view of the game of hoops.

His Mountaineers had just missed out on an opportunity to raise some eyebrows following a 70-63 loss against No. 13 Texas Tech inside the Hope Coliseum.

Now, honestly, the phrase “opportunity to raise some eyebrows” might be a little misleading. Texas Tech never trailed, led by as much as 15 points with 13 minutes to go in the game and its two star players – J.T. Toppin and Christian Anderson – both finished with double-doubles.

Still, the final score showed a seven-point margin of victory – Texas Tech was favored by 4.5 points – all while the Mountaineers were dreadful at the two lines that mean the most in basketball.

WVU finished 2 for 22 at the 3-point line and 13 of 23 from the foul line. That’s 9% from 3-point range and 56.5% from the charity stripe, in which the only “charity” on this day was helping the Red Raiders.

In what would have been the normal type of bad shooting day for a college hoops team, say 27% from 3-point range and 69% from the foul line, if WVU had just reached that type of poor level, the Mountaineers would have pulled a major upset with an eight-point victory.

There has never been a previous WVU coach or opposing coach who wouldn’t have taken those pitiful shooting numbers and made them the central focus of the postgame discussion with the media afterward.

Former WVU coach John Beilein would have been all over them, but likely would have also had some sane and analytical explanation as to why the Mountaineers had such a bad day in those two areas.

Bob Huggins? Fists would have been lightly pounding the table, as he retold the story on how his players had to make 100 free throws every single day before leaving practice.

By the way, that was always one of Huggins’ stories us media guys sort of doubted. There was no way some of his former WVU players like Gabe Osabuohien – a career 48.7% free-throw shooter – stood there every single day and made 100 free throws after practice, unless he was still there shooting in the dark when everyone else had gone home.

Now, we get to Hodge’s curveball. Make no mistake, he pointed to WVU’s poor numbers from the 3-point line and the foul line, but really only as a point of reference.

They weren’t the reason WVU lost the game, at least not in his eyes. We know this not only by what Hodge said after the game – we’ll get to that shortly – but also by what his players talked about in the postgame before Hodge even came out to speak.

“You can look at the threes and the free throws,” began WVU center Harlan Obioha. “To be honest, if we get on those first three loose balls at the start of the game, it’s a whole different story on how this game goes.”

At that point, we hadn’t heard Hodge’s summation of the game, so call Obioha’s pitch a hard slider in the dirt, in that it kind of caught you off guard, but it wasn’t a strikeout.

Hodge followed, and it became very clear that much of his postgame locker room talk to his players centered on his team’s lack of urgency and will to get to some loose balls early in the game.

How do we know this? Because it was the second thing Hodge said in his opening statement. He opened with how much respect he had for Texas Tech coach Grant McCasland – the two go way back – and the Texas Tech program and then went right into those loose balls.

“As far as this game went, probably the biggest disappointment I told our guys was just our inability to grab loose balls early in the game that really kind of led directly to a couple of (Donovan) Atwell threes.

“He’s a great shooter. The first one of the game, it was a loose ball. They dove on it. We tried to pick it up. He bangs a three and out of their first 15 points, a lot of them were just kind of busted plays and loose balls and extra effort.”

It was a knee-buckling curveball, the type that even Aaron Judge would have whiffed at and then wondered what the heck just happened, as he walked back to the dugout.

Loose balls. Busted plays. Sure, they make a difference. Every single possession, every moment plays some small role in the final outcome. We get that.

What we don’t get is how a ball rolling around on the floor 80 seconds into the game is THE difference, not after WVU missed 20 3-point shots and 10 free throws in a seven-point game.

“To me, it was more – we call them 50-50 balls – if you go back and watch the first eight minutes of that game, they got just about every single one of them,” Hodge said. “I view it as despite going 2 for 22 and despite going 13 of 23 from the foul line, which you can’t always control, you had eight loose balls to grab. If you grabbed four of those loose balls, maybe you beat them 63-59.”

Maybe it was Hodge trying to change the narrative. He’s taken heat for his team’s inability to score and getting off to such horrid starts in games. A lot of good NIL money was spent this season on players who simply haven’t lived up to the hype.

The view from here is Hodge is just a different type of cat, one who is so obsessed with keeping the other team from scoring that it heavily outweighs anything that has to do with his own team putting points on the scoreboard.

Can’t shoot straight? Fine, go out and get steals, rebounds and those damned loose balls. Can’t score? Fine, then don’t let the guy your guarding score, either.

The thing is, Hodge hasn’t hid that narrative about himself. He’s talked about defense since his first day on the job. All coaches talk about defense. It’s what they’re supposed to talk about.

Yet, Hodge maybe took that narrative to a whole other level on Sunday. While the rest of us see 3-pointers clanging off the back of the rim and guys not even coming close on their free throws, Hodge sees loose balls.

At the very least, it’s an interesting pitch.