West Virginia hired Ross Hodge from North Texas as its new men’s basketball coach on Wednesday.
The 44-year-old Hodge replaces Darian DeVries, who left after just one season to join Indiana. Hodge agreed to a five-year deal to become West Virginia’s fourth coach in as many years. The details of the contract were not immediately shared.
“Ross Hodge is a proven winner and leader who has demonstrated success at every stop of his career,” West Virginia athletic director Wren Baker said in a statement.
Hodge has a 46-23 record in two seasons as the coach of North Texas, where this year his team is 27-8 and advancing to the National Invitation Tournament semifinals next Tuesday in Indianapolis.
He has also been part of coaching staffs that made three NCAA tournament appearances, including an upset of Purdue as a No. 13 seed in 2021.
Though Hodge may not have been the first choice when the West Virginia job opened, other coaches believed to be in the running took other jobs: Drake’s Ben McCollum went to Iowa, Colorado State’s Niko Medved moved to Minnesota, and New Mexico’s Richard Pitino joined Xavier.
Baker found Hodge by looking back to his past.
Baker was the athletic director at North Texas from 2016 to 2022. Hodge worked as an assistant coach for six seasons under Grant McCasland. When McCasland moved to Texas Tech in 2023, Hodge became head coach, leading the team to a 19-15 record in their first season in the American Athletic Conference, despite facing many injuries.
Hodge is known for building North Texas’ strong defense, with the team ranked No. 1 in the nation in scoring defense for the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons. During that time, they won 25 and a school-record 31 games, including the 2023 NIT championship.
Ross Hodge reacts in the 1st half“I have such respect for the toughness, grit, and pride of the people of West Virginia, and my hope is that we can reflect that with how our team competes on the court,” Hodge said.
A Dallas native, Hodge also worked as an assistant under McCasland at Arkansas State and served under Larry Eustachy at Colorado State and Southern Miss.
McCasland, whose Texas Tech team faces Arkansas in the Sweet 16 on Thursday, said he sees Hodge as a brother who cares deeply about people, holds them accountable, and tells them the truth.
“You’ll see he will win in the Big 12. And it will not be what other people think,” McCasland said Wednesday. “It will be at the highest level. And I’m not looking forward to playing him, but I am looking forward to going on this journey with him, because I love him. And I love him because who he is as a husband, and who he is as a father and who he is as a friend.”
West Virginia had a tough week last week, first missing out on the NCAA Tournament despite a 19-13 record and six Quad 1 wins, then seeing DeVries leave just two days later.
DeVries had been hired last year to replace interim coach Josh Eilert, who led the Mountaineers through a tough nine-win season in 2023-24 after Hall of Fame coach Bob Huggins resigned following a June 2023 drunken driving arrest.
After DeVries left, Baker was asked if it was important to find someone with ties to the program for a long-term solution.
“I know that there can be a knee-jerk reaction when you lose a coach after a year,” Baker said last week. “Human nature is to think, ‘Oh God, we have to get somebody who’s connected to here.’ I just think your job is to go out and get the best coach that you can. And you want to have coaches that other people covet and want to come after. Because the alternative to that is, nobody wants your coach. And that’s not very good.”
West Virginia will go through its third consecutive season of roster changes. Five players from the current roster have entered the NCAA transfer portal, including four starters. Baker has expressed hope that the players will give the new coach a chance to recruit them back for the next season.
