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Mar. 26—MORGANTOWN — The wait is over, as sources told The Dominion Post Wednesday that North Texas head coach Ross Hodge will be the next head basketball coach at West Virginia.
CBS Sports' Matt Norlander announced Hodge will sign a five-year deal with the Mountaineers.
Hodge is currently coaching the Mean Green in the NIT semifinals, which are April 1 at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indiana.
The connection between Hodge and WVU athletic director Wren Baker goes back to Baker's time as North Texas' athletic director. Hodge was the associate head coach at North Texas in 2017, the year after Baker started his tenure at the school.
Now, there is a major sidebar here on just how much Hodge's hiring will excite the WVU fan base.
That's not what we're going to discuss today.
Rather, it's time to talk about how high of a price WVU athletic director Wren Baker just paid by not going with Utah State head coach Jerrod Calhoun as the next head coach.
Calhoun, who interviewed for the WVU opening last Saturday, is finalizing a deal with the Aggies that will reportedly pay him $8 million over the next four years.
The story behind Baker passing over Calhoun is one of a growing feud between Baker and a certain percentage of the major athletic donors at WVU.
It is a rift, according to sources, that goes back to last December, when former football coach Neal Brown was fired and Rich Rodriguez was hired.
The big money wanted Rodriguez and that big money eventually won out.
The big money, this time, wanted Calhoun on WVU's sideline.
However you want to put it, planting a flag or drawing a line in the sand, that's the stand Baker took this time around.
And, according to sources, it could be a costly one for WVU in terms of financial support from certain boosters for NIL funding for the men's hoops program.
"What I can tell you is there are so many people who are just enraged over this, " a source told The Dominion Post. "I'm not sure Wren fully understands the consequences behind this decision."
Now, as to why Baker took a hard stand in not hiring Calhoun, there are two reasons.
The obvious one is Calhoun's ties with former WVU head coach Bob Huggins, which according to a source, was the first thing Calhoun addressed in his interview.
"He basically told them he had learned a lot under Huggins and had a great deal of respect for Huggins, but that he had no interest in having Huggins as part of his staff or as part of the program, " a source said.
Huggins and the WVU athletic department, as well as WVU President E. Gordon Gee, who is retiring on June 30, have been at odds ever since Huggins was forced into resigning as head coach on June 17, 2023.
The other reason is more about analytics and metrics, in that Calhoun is considered an offense-first type of coach. Baker's extensive research that led him to hiring Darian DeVries in 2024, centered around finding a coach who was more defensive-minded.
To that effect, Hodge's team at North Texas this season ranked third in the country in points allowed, holding teams to just 59.9 points per game.
The Mean Green also rank 43rd in the country in defensive field-goal percentage, holding opponents to 41.1 % overall.
But, he has been a Division I head coach for just two seasons, with both of those seasons ending in the NIT.
Outside of his connections with Baker, Hodge has no connections with WVU or the state of West Virginia.
Calhoun's wife, Sarah, is from Wheeling. Calhoun spent five years under Huggins at WVU, before branching off and leading Fairmont State to the 2017 Division II national title game.
His cell phone number still begins with the West Virginia area code.
There is another side to the story, as there always is.
To be sure, not every single athletic donor is up in arms over Hodge's hiring.
Baker still has his fair share of supporters within the booster base.
And there has to be a certain percentage of the fan base that likes the fact that Baker refused to be some kind of puppet, letting some of the high-rollers pull his strings.
But, if the big money is furious, and if Hodge doesn't make an immediate impact on the program, it's not going to look good for the WVU athletic director.
And remember, new WVU President Michael Benson is set to begin his term in July, and he is not joined at the hip with Baker, as Gee was.
Was it worth chancing all of that and planting a flag at this particular time for Baker ?
Only time will tell.
Continue reading...
CBS Sports' Matt Norlander announced Hodge will sign a five-year deal with the Mountaineers.
Hodge is currently coaching the Mean Green in the NIT semifinals, which are April 1 at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indiana.
The connection between Hodge and WVU athletic director Wren Baker goes back to Baker's time as North Texas' athletic director. Hodge was the associate head coach at North Texas in 2017, the year after Baker started his tenure at the school.
Now, there is a major sidebar here on just how much Hodge's hiring will excite the WVU fan base.
That's not what we're going to discuss today.
Rather, it's time to talk about how high of a price WVU athletic director Wren Baker just paid by not going with Utah State head coach Jerrod Calhoun as the next head coach.
Calhoun, who interviewed for the WVU opening last Saturday, is finalizing a deal with the Aggies that will reportedly pay him $8 million over the next four years.
The story behind Baker passing over Calhoun is one of a growing feud between Baker and a certain percentage of the major athletic donors at WVU.
It is a rift, according to sources, that goes back to last December, when former football coach Neal Brown was fired and Rich Rodriguez was hired.
The big money wanted Rodriguez and that big money eventually won out.
The big money, this time, wanted Calhoun on WVU's sideline.
However you want to put it, planting a flag or drawing a line in the sand, that's the stand Baker took this time around.
And, according to sources, it could be a costly one for WVU in terms of financial support from certain boosters for NIL funding for the men's hoops program.
"What I can tell you is there are so many people who are just enraged over this, " a source told The Dominion Post. "I'm not sure Wren fully understands the consequences behind this decision."
Now, as to why Baker took a hard stand in not hiring Calhoun, there are two reasons.
The obvious one is Calhoun's ties with former WVU head coach Bob Huggins, which according to a source, was the first thing Calhoun addressed in his interview.
"He basically told them he had learned a lot under Huggins and had a great deal of respect for Huggins, but that he had no interest in having Huggins as part of his staff or as part of the program, " a source said.
Huggins and the WVU athletic department, as well as WVU President E. Gordon Gee, who is retiring on June 30, have been at odds ever since Huggins was forced into resigning as head coach on June 17, 2023.
The other reason is more about analytics and metrics, in that Calhoun is considered an offense-first type of coach. Baker's extensive research that led him to hiring Darian DeVries in 2024, centered around finding a coach who was more defensive-minded.
To that effect, Hodge's team at North Texas this season ranked third in the country in points allowed, holding teams to just 59.9 points per game.
The Mean Green also rank 43rd in the country in defensive field-goal percentage, holding opponents to 41.1 % overall.
But, he has been a Division I head coach for just two seasons, with both of those seasons ending in the NIT.
Outside of his connections with Baker, Hodge has no connections with WVU or the state of West Virginia.
Calhoun's wife, Sarah, is from Wheeling. Calhoun spent five years under Huggins at WVU, before branching off and leading Fairmont State to the 2017 Division II national title game.
His cell phone number still begins with the West Virginia area code.
There is another side to the story, as there always is.
To be sure, not every single athletic donor is up in arms over Hodge's hiring.
Baker still has his fair share of supporters within the booster base.
And there has to be a certain percentage of the fan base that likes the fact that Baker refused to be some kind of puppet, letting some of the high-rollers pull his strings.
But, if the big money is furious, and if Hodge doesn't make an immediate impact on the program, it's not going to look good for the WVU athletic director.
And remember, new WVU President Michael Benson is set to begin his term in July, and he is not joined at the hip with Baker, as Gee was.
Was it worth chancing all of that and planting a flag at this particular time for Baker ?
Only time will tell.
Continue reading...
