Tech Talk Live Notes for January 11, 2016

Devin Wilson

UVA was a great team win, and it was huge for the program. Being able to beat them in front of Tech fans was great. It’s very important to win at home in the ACC.

It was frustrating to miss the first few games with an injury. That’s the first time he’s been injured in his entire life.

Getting Zach LeDay and Seth Allen on the court this year has been big. It was obvious last year when they were sitting out that they would be good players for the Hokies.

Tech has to bounce back against Wake Forest. The Demon Deacons are very good and very confidence right now.

Tech didn’t start out well against Duke. They weren’t as aggressive as they had been in the previous two games. They just weren’t ready. The second half was much better, but they needed to have a better start.

The Hokies have a very close team. They have a family environment.

Wilson misses playing football. He was a good player in high school who could have played in college. He is a big Steelers fan.

Wilson’s brother Christian played football at UNC. Devin looked up to him growing up, and Christian always set a good example for him.

Wilson believes the team has a great future ahead of it. Hopefully can can build on their 2-1 start. People on the team are starting to embrace their roles, and that’s really helping the team.

Wilson feels like he needs to work on his vocal leadership skills. He needs to talk more.

Justin Robinson is Wilson’s roommate on road trips. He tries to play the big brother role. Robinson has played a big role as a true freshman.

Wilson wants Clemson to win the National Championship, but he thinks Alabama might have a little bit too much for them.

Buzz Williams

One of the reasons Duke has the program that they have is because of the identity that they’ve created. They have really good players and coaches. When you go into that sort of environment, you have to stay true to your identity. The Hokies got away from their identity in the first half. They did fine in the second half, but it’s easier to play when nothing is at stake.

Williams tries to pay attention to his body language in games that are going south. If he goes south with the game, then things are going to completely unravel. With a team this young, he knows the players are paying close attention to him, particularly when things aren’t going so well.

Buzz has gotten nine technical fouls during his nine year career. Some of them were intentional because he thought his team would respond to them.

After Buzz got a job as a student manager at a junior college, he decided he wanted to be a head coach at the college level. He had to start out sweeping floors and detailing cars for his coaches, but that’s how he got his foot in the door. His goals progressed as he steadily moved up. His first Division I job came when he was 21 years old, and he slept in an air mattress in the office. He was getting paid $100 a week and he didn’t have the money to rent an apartment.

Williams doesn’t care what he looks like on TV. He knows he can look wild at times, but his job is to make sure his team is prepared on every single possession.

Williams has had five contracts since he’s been a head coach. He’s written his own contract each time. He uses the freedom of information act to read contracts of all basketball and football coaches. He never wanted to go through an agent.

Williams has always wanted to write a book. A publishing company has contacted him about it. He wasn’t interested at the time, but he did ask them to teach him how to write a book. Maybe he’ll write one after his career is over. He’d also be interested in writing a children’s book. He could also be interested in writing a motivational or business book.

Buzz met with Coach Beamer the day after he arrived in Blacksburg. He wanted the opportunity to learn from him, but he never wanted to ask Beamer to do anything on his behalf. Buzz met with Jeff Snook, who wrote the second book about Beamer, to get a better idea about the man.

Buzz thinks Tech has a year three schedule with a year two roster. The roster was massively overhauled. He thinks the right decisions were made, but time will tell. In a rebuilding job, you can’t sign guys who aren’t good enough, and you can’t sign guys who don’t fit your culture. You can’t take risks, and you can’t reach for players. By year four, you should have a whole roster of your type of players.

Buzz built this team thinking that Ahmed Hill, Chris Clarke and Ty Outlaw, and it’s unfortunate that they aren’t available. You can write a book about every season, and those issues are part of the story of this season.

Wake Forest is a really good team. They want to play fast, and they’ll play nine or ten high major players. The Hokies can’t get into a scoring contest. They have to play a good halfcourt game. They have to figure out a way to limit Devin Thomas. Buzz believes they are a better team than a couple of ACC teams the Hokies have already faced.

Virginia Tech has held the Commonwealth Cup for 4062 days. #Hokies

— Commonwealth Cup (@CommonwlthCup) January 11, 2016