How Good Will WVU Be in Year One? Ross Hodge Details Expectations & Ultimate Goal

Winning a national title is something West Virginia fans have been waiting their entire lives for. If it happens, the state will be filled with joy, tears, and a state of disbelief. The party will begin and have no end.

Heartbreak has been an all too familiar feeling for Mountaineer fans, be it the 1988 national title game in football, being left out of the national title in 1993, that game against the team up north in 2007, Da'Sean Butler's injury in the Final Four, and so on.

That pain has continued in basketball over the last handful of years since Bob Huggins stepped down from his post. They've sat through a challenging year where everything that could go wrong went wrong under an interim coach, and then had success under a new coach, only to get snubbed from the NCAA Tournament, and then two days later, lose him to Indiana.

Now, Ross Hodge is the man responsible for getting the program back on track and he's already talking about winning it all.

“Obviously want to get back to the NCAA Tournament. I mean, the ultimate goal would be to win a national championship," he said in an interview with CBS Sports' Jon Rothstein. "I think that’s what everybody wants to do. It’s not easy to do, but that’s what we want to do here, and to do that, you’ve got to put a team together that’s connected and tough, plays for each other, and plays the right way. That would be the goal. Not only get in the NCAA Tournament, but advance.”

Cutting the nets down in year one is extremely unlikely, but it has to be refreshing for Mountaineer fans to hear a coach talk about the national championship. On the football side, I'm not sure Neal Brown uttered the words a single time in six years. Rich Rodriguez has mentioned it just about every other week in the six months he's been back. To have that mindset back in the basketball program is enough reason to get excited about the future.

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