Ross Hodge and his staff are beginning to make progress on the roster heading into the upcoming 2025-2026 season, let’s see how the roster is constructed already and what else needs to be done.
Hodge landed his first transfer target at WVU, as Harlan Obioha announced that he would be committing to WVU from UNC Wilmington. Obioha a 7-foot 280-pound center was highly touted in the transfer portal. Last year at UNCW, he averaged 9.2 points and six rebounds per game and even produced 17 games with 10 or more points and five games where he recorded 10 or more rebounds.
Brenen Lorient was the second player to announce that they would be coming to Morgantown. Coming from North Texas, Lorient will rejoin Hodge at WVU. Last season at North Texas, Lorient averaged 11.7 points, 4.9 rebounds, and 1.3 assists per game, earning him AAC First-Team All-Conference honors and was even named the AAC Sixth Man of the Year.
DeAndre Thomas is another player who has pledged their commitment to WVU in the last few days. Since Thomas is still a recruit and a part of the 2025 class, he had to go through the process of requesting release from his NLI with North Texas, but once that was cleared he committed to WVU to join Hodge. Thomas is listed as a three-star prospect and is ranked as the No. 62 power forward in his class and the No. 27 ranked overall player in the state of Texas. Thomas will join both Lorient and Obioha as the only players to have committed to WVU as of now.
With additions to the roster, there must also come subtractions. On Wednesday sophomore Ofri Naveh announced that he would be entering the transfer portal. Naveh has spent each of the last two seasons with WVU but took a redshirt last season. In the 2023-2024 season, Naveh was named to the All-Big 12 Rookie team and averaged 2.6 points and 2.5 rebounds per game while appearing in 24 games with seven starts. He will enter the portal with three years of eligibility remaining.
With a lot of work left to be done for Hodge and his staff, they have begun taking steps in the right direction as WVU looks for stability amid their third straight offseason looking to replace almost an entire roster.
