Hodge welcomes competition, challenge of Big 12

The allure of competing in the Big 12 Conference was something that was obviously attractive to Ross Hodge when he took the head coaching job at West Virginia.

The Big 12 is a gauntlet with 16 teams and will present plenty of opportunities for Hodge and his team to stack their resume with quadrant one matchups.

“Yeah, I mean, it's what we all want to do, right? You want to play against the best, you want to compete against the best, you want to play in the best venues.” Hodge told Jon Rothstein in an appearance on his podcast.

As a competitor, playing against some of the top brands in college basketball is something that is appealing for Hodge, even with the challenges it presents.

“As a coach, as a player, that’s what you want. You want the opportunity to put yourself in position to have success in late March,” Hodge said.

The more success that West Virginia is able to have in the league it puts the Mountaineers in a better position to be selected for the NCAA Tournament. It goes without saying that it’s impossible to have success in the tournament without qualifying for it and that’s when good things can happen.

Which only reinforces the benefits of playing in a league as challenging as the Big 12.

“Upsets happen across from you and you can find yourself being a game away from the Final Four. A game away from the National Championship. You can find yourself in the National Championship game,” Hodge said.

----------

• Talk about it with West Virginia fans on The Blue Lot.

• SUBSCRIBE today to stay up on the latest on Mountaineer sports and recruiting.

• Get all of our WVU videos on YouTube by subscribing to the WVSports.com Channel

• Follow us on Twitter: @WVSportsDotCom, @rivalskeenan, @wesleyshoe

•Like us on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok