2026 PHILLIPS 66 BIG 12 MEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT

March 11, 2026

Ross Hodge

Brenen Lorient

Honor Huff

T-Mobile Center

West Virginia Mountaineers

Postgame Press Conference

BYU - 68, West Virginia - 48

ROSS HODGE: I want to start out by giving Coach Young and his team a lot of credit. Thought they were the more physical team today. Obviously turned the ball over entirely too much. Felt pretty fortunate to just be down eight at the half, considering we had 14 turnovers and felt like our defense held up pretty good for the most part when we weren't throwing them the ball, and just didn't play well enough to beat a quality opponent this time of year.

Q. Can you talk about BYU's defensive effort in the second half? Coach Young talked about simplifying their approach since they played you guys a couple weeks ago. What did you see in terms of what they were able to do against you guys defensively tonight, as opposed to when you guys played them a couple weeks ago?

ROSS HODGE: Yeah, I thought the biggest thing was just their physicality and the intensity at which they played with. They made it hard for us to move the ball. They played -- they played some different lineup combinations and ended up playing a little more athletic and a little more physical. Twenty-four didn't play much at our place; 6, 2, 5 played a lot of minutes.

So really I just felt it was like they were a lot more disruptive, got their hands on balls and really took us out of things that we were trying to do, whereas a couple weeks ago I thought the ball moved a little easier.

And obviously, like I said, just turning the ball over 22 times, you don't give yourself much of a chance. But you've got to give them a lot of credit for that. I just thought their physicality and intensity level was a lot higher.