West Virginia men’s basketball coach Ross Hodge has made several moves rebuilding the roster for next winter’s season. Obviously, he had to, given that Darian DeVries left the cupboard bare when he went to Indiana. And clearly, Hodge has wasted no time with his signings.
Of his group, former Chattanooga sharpshooter Honor Huff has me intrigued. Signing Honor Huff to this year’s Mountaineer squad says several things about what Hodge wants to do and what he’s capable of doing.
Here’s a look at what signing Honor Huff means for West Virginia.
Hodge Can Multitask Well
Handling one high-pressure job is tough. Handling two or more at once is incredibly hard. Yet Hodge pulled it off beautifully. His North Texas squad didn’t look at all distracted when playing in the NIT semifinals. It played a tough, disciplined game in losing to UC Irvine and acquitted itself well in Indianapolis.
What does that have to do with signing Honor Huff? Huff played in the second game of the NIT semifinals, and Hodge had the presence of mind to look at him as a potential fit for next year. The Mean Green didn’t play a Southern Conference opponent until facing Furman in the NIT, so Hodge wouldn’t have had much reason to look at tape of Huff until he had already accepted the West Virginia job.
Yet things came together quickly following Hodge’s arrival in Morgantown. That says that Hodge likely watched that second game and came away impressed with Huff. And it’s easy to see why. The win over Loyola-Chicago wasn’t one of Huff’s best games, but it featured a key moment near the end. Huff slammed the door on the Ramblers with a critical 3-pointer in the final minutes. Having the confidence to take that shot in a one-point game bodes well for his future.
“I just don’t want to let my teammates, you know,” Huff said after that win. “Realistically, if we would have lost, I would have held it a lot on my back and the burden on me because of the game I had shooting the ball. So I just knew I wanted to close it out, and just like (against Middle Tennessee State), I felt like that was the time to do it.”
Signing Honor Huff Brings Someone With a Big Game Mentality
When a player moves from the mid-majors to the Power 5, there are always questions of how they’ll handle the jump. It can be a culture shock to go from 2,000 fans and ESPN+ to playing Kansas on national TV.
Huff doesn’t look like he’ll have any issues. He’s won big games, as shown in bringing the NIT title to Chattanooga. In the NIT, the Mocs played five games and Huff sat on the bench for all of one minute. In the final against UC Irvine, Huff played all 45 minutes. He spent all 55 minutes on the floor against Middle Tennessee.
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Part of that could be because of Chattanooga’s depth, but part is because he wants the ball in big moments. That wasn’t always the case.
“I think (in 2024), if I was having a bad game, it just took over the whole game,” Huff said. (Chattanooga) coach (Dan Earl) used to get on me for that. Nowadays it’s just like we want to win, and I want to win for my teammates. So I’m going to make the big play down the stretch and I kind of flush everything else that happens. And if I miss a lot of shots, or I make them, it’s crunch time.”
That mentality will serve Huff well against tougher opponents. It certainly won’t hurt the Mountaineers to have a shooter who isn’t afraid of big moments.
Hodge Will Value the Deep Shot
In 2023-24, North Texas had the best 3-point shooting team in the American. In 2024-25, it was still good but not as good as past years. And the Mean Green dropped from being middle of the pack in 3-point attempts to near the bottom of their league.
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That says two things about Hodge: He works with what he’s got, and he wasn’t satisfied with his team’s shooting last year. Good coaches build teams around their philosophies. Great ones have a backup plan when their philosophies don’t fit their roster. Hodge doesn’t appear to be wedded to only one way to coach basketball. That’s a good sign for both the present and the future.
That said, you don’t go out and sign the nation’s leader in made 3-pointers unless you plan to emphasize the shot. Expect West Virginia to prioritize the deep shot all season this year. Signing Honor Huff and Treysen Eaglestaff gives the Mountaineers two strong shooters who can lift their teams out of a slump.
Defense and Efficient Shots Will Matter
We already could have guessed this about Ross Hodge based on previous showings. Things like defense and efficient shooting don’t disappear when you change schools. That’s especially true since 2019. In 2019, the national championship game matched Virginia and Texas Tech. Both of these teams had coaches who prioritized defense and efficiency.
Until that title game, there were real questions about whether that could win in March. Now we know it can. Coaches like Tony Bennett, Matt Painter, Kelvin Sampson, Grant McCasland, Chris Beard and Dan Hurley have all had success prioritizing defense and smart shots.
That does not mean Ross Hodge will be a guaranteed success in Morgantown. It doesn’t mean that for Honor Huff, either. But Hodge’s philosophy appears four or five steps in the right direction. And signing Honor Huff for the Mountaineers shows Hodge is committed to that approach.
