North Texas head coach Ross Hodge just keeps winning. On Tuesday night Hodge’s Mean Green bested Oklahoma State in the NIT quarterfinals 61-59 to earn their 27th win of the season, and less than 24 hours later, Hodge and West Virginia reportedly agreed on a deal to make him the Mountaineer’s next head coach.
BREAKING: West Virginia is hiring North Texas coach Ross Hodge on a five-year contract, sources tell CBS Sports. The deal will be officially announced soon. Hodge's UNT team is still playing in the NIT. Hodge has ties to WVU AD Wren Baker, who was at UNT before getting to WVU.
— Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander) March 26, 2025
West Virginia set to hire Ross Hodge as next head coach
Hodge has been at North Texas since 2017 when he joined Grant McCasland’s staff as an assistant, taking over the program when McCasland left for Texas Tech in 2023. Hodge overlapped with current West Virginia athletic director Wren Baker in Denton when Baker was the athletic director for North Texas from 2016-22 before leaving for Morgantown and the Big 12.
Hodge is Baker’s second head coach hire for the West Virginia men’s basketball program over what has been a tumultuous three-year run for the program. Bob Huggins resigned from the program after a DUI in 2023 and was replaced by interim head coach Josh Eilert for a nine-win 2023-24 season.
Baker then hired Darian DeVries away from Drake, but DeVries seemingly admitted to striking a handshake deal to become the next head coach at Indiana midway through the season after Mike Woodson announced he was stepping down. That may have led DeVries to keep his injured star and son, Tucker DeVries, out for the season after just eight games to preserve his final season of eligibility for a rebuild in Bloomington. Once West Virginia shockingly missed out on an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament, DeVries bolted.
Now, Baker has identified his next head coach, but it’s unclear exactly when the reunion will come for him and Hodge. The NIT semifinals are scheduled for Tuesday, April 1, with the Championship Game on Thursday, April 3. However, the transfer portal opened this past Sunday night with hundreds of players pouring into the portal on Monday and Tuesday.
Hodge needs to get a jump on rebuilding the Mountaineers' roster and may consider leaving North Texas before the season officially comes to an end, much like college football coaches during bowl season.
The NIT’s value has decreased over the years, with many major teams, including West Virginia, declining bids into what is essentially a consolation tournament. The timeline of college basketball’s transfer portal is absurd, forcing coaches to mark difficult decisions during the ongoing postseason. If Hodge does depart mid-NIT run, it may not set off major alarm bells about the health of the sport and the viability of the portal window as it is currently positioned.
However, once a mid-major coach makes the same decision while his team is in the NCAA Tournament, as Will Wade may have been forced to if McNeese had beaten Purdue and advanced past to the Sweet 16 while its head coach had a deal in place with NC State, it will be an existential crisis for mid-major programs and college basketball at large.
UPDATE: Hodge expected to stay through NIT run
According to Matt Norlanders of CBS Sports, Hodge is expected to stay at North Texas through the end of the Mean Green's NIT run.