Tech Talk Live Notes: Justyn Mutts and Mike Young

On Thursday, Virginia Tech men’s basketball forward Justyn Mutts and head coach Mike Young joined Mike Burnop on Tech Talk Live. They discussed the Hokies’ six-game win streak, the recent victories over Syracuse and Virginia, and the final five-game stretch.

On getting the crowd hype during games:

Man, it’s beautiful. It really is a blessing. I really love Blacksburg. I love the way they treat me here and I feel as though the energy that I put out is being reciprocated every single day. I couldn’t be more blessed.

On where he’s from:

I’m originally from South Jersey, about an hour away from Atlantic City. It’s really a calm place, there’s not too much going on there. You really move in slow motion, kind of like how it is here in Blacksburg. Not as many mountains, I’ll say that, but once I left South Jersey, I went to High Point for a year and then I transferred to the University of Delaware. I redshirted one year, then I played I guess you could say my sophomore season there. Then I transferred here, played here two years and have loved every minute of it.

On getting recruited to Virginia Tech:

When I was at Delaware, I had a pretty good season. I had ten double-doubles at Delaware, so I guess I put up relatively good numbers. Decided to put my name on the portal, didn’t have the best experience at Delaware, nothing against the school at all, just wasn’t for me personally. I really feel like I came here and really found myself out here and it’s been beautiful.

On sitting out in 2018-2019:

It was a struggle just not being able to help my team win, help them win games. But I had the opportunity to redshirt with a really good player named Nate Darling. He went on to play a little bit with the Hornets, played for their G-league team a little bit as well. But me and him, we both redshirted the same year. We played one year together and then we both left at the same time. So I really had a great opportunity to build a relationship with him. He’s still doing really well.

On getting his Psychology degree from Delaware:

I was able to graduate after three years of college, so a lot of students take the full four years, but I was able to get it done. I really didn’t drop any classes. I was able to pass all my classes, I didn’t fail out of any of them. I just kind of take care of what’s in front of me and do the work.

A lot of people wind up changing their majors as well. But I feel as though early on, I kind of knew what my interest was, interested in the mind, interested in people. So I just kind of stuck to that track.

On his family and siblings:

I’m the second youngest. My younger brother, Deuce, he’s 17 now, he’s a junior in high school. So he’s doing really well. But I have a good relationship with all my siblings. I was never really the type to argue or get caught in any kind of sibling-sibling beef. I know that’s probably pretty rare. I know a lot of people find that, but for me, any problems just kind of go over my head. I’ve never really put energy into anything negative because negativity is not for me.

On his younger brother Deuce:

Deuce plays basketball. He was really good at soccer as well so he’s kind of a double sport athlete. In the past couple of years, he kind of gave up soccer just to focus on basketball. So he’s kind of pursuing that route right now.

On his dad, Jarett Mutts:

My dad is about 6’2,” 6’3.” My mom is 5’8.” I got really lucky on that. I’m the tallest of all my siblings, so I just kind of used my, I guess my blessing, to just make the most out of the life I have. So he was a really good athlete. I don’t think he was the best basketball player. Hope he doesn’t hear this. But he taught me a lot, though, definitely being able to grow up working out with him a lot, so that was good for me.

On his dad helping him get to the level he is now:

Any good parent deserves that credit. He shouldn’t have to take that credit. You should be willing to give him the credit where it’s due.

On hitting 1,000 career points:

It felt amazing. I was able to get it in high school as well. It’s a really incredible feat for any athlete to get, so for me to be able to do it especially – for me to be able to do it at home in front of our fans. But in front of our crowd, it felt really good. I was aware of it leading up to the game, how many points I needed, but at the same time, that’s just not how I play basketball. I’m not gonna play just trying to get points all the time. So I was just sticking to the game plan, trying to win honestly.

On Keve Aluma getting to 1,000 points in the same game:

I had no idea [he was close]. He never even mentioned it, whereas me. I’m speaking about it everyday. I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, eight points away.’ But yeah, I had no idea Keve was that close so that was amazing. I was so happy for him. And then Storm [Murphy] just got 1,500 as well. So our whole team is kind of reaching pretty big accomplishments right now, though. Definitely, for it to be coming at this time in the season, where we kind of need to get hot, you know, just kind of leading into the atmosphere that we have going on in our program.

On the “Desperosity” mentality:

Somebody asked me, ‘What is the difference?’ I would say we’re playing with a lot more desperosity now, but that’s not a word. I meant to say desperation. We’re playing with a different kind of desperation at this point. Now understanding that there’s no other option. We have to win these games. We can’t afford to drop any more. We can’t afford to be lackadaisical or play with any kind of entitlement. We have to go out and attack each and every opportunity that we get.

On the triple-double against Syracuse:

It felt amazing. We have so many good shooters on our team. So especially playing against a zone, it’s like you get the ball in their hands at the right time. I was just really confident that the ball was gonna go in. Also playing with Keve Aluma – great finisher, great hands so you get the ball to him anywhere around the basket and I already know it. That’s two points right there for the Hokies and I mean that’s a win for us.

On the crowd versus Virginia:

That was amazing. That was probably the best crowd I’ve ever been a part of. That was just an amazing basketball atmosphere to be a part of. Hope we have a similar crowd here on Saturday, because every single one of these games is of equal importance.

On halftime in the locker room against Virginia:

That’s the desperosity coming in the game. Just knowing that  we can’t afford to drop this. Especially understanding that it’s a rival, and just understanding what we have to do for the home team, for Blacksburg. It’s a lot bigger than just us. You gotta keep that in mind.

On being up for the Senior Class award:

I mean, that’s awesome too, but at the same time I’m just trying to focus on what’s in front of me. Just trying to do my homework, go to practice every day to try to make the best decisions that I can. And at the end of the day, the award and all the accolades, all that comes with doing the right thing, you know.

On the North Carolina game on Saturday:

That’s a must-win game. We dropped the game against them at their place. And we can’t afford to get swept by any team in this league right now. We understand what we want to do, understand how far we want to go, and knowing what we have in the locker room as well. That’s a must win game. And I think everybody in our team is going into that game with the same kind of hunger, the same kind of desperation and know that we gotta get it done.

On North Carolina’s loss to Pittsburgh:

At the same time that you know, UNC has a great program. Any team could lose at any time in this league. And that’s why you always gotta step into every single game with the same sense of preparation, readiness and attack mode always.

On the loss against North Carolina last year in the ACC tournament:

A lot of people said that was like my coming out game, in a way. They had a lot of really good players on their team at that time. They still do have a lot of good players on their team. I guess I just stepped it up a level that game, but a lot of people did. We just weren’t able to get it done.

On his favorite play:

Well, I tell my teammates this all the time that I think getting a nice assist is one of the best feelings for me, at least. I don’t know, I just like seeing my teammates succeed. I like seeing them do well. And I like getting them the ball in the right position. Just allowing me to help them succeed. I’d definitely say being able to get a nice assist. 

But as of late, because when I was younger, I wasn’t allowed to shoot threes until really I got here. Coach Young really put that in trust me, you know, he took me to the next level. So at this point, anytime I’ll make a three I’m always really excited, too. He’s still trying to push me to shoot more, to be more aggressive. But that’s just me as a basketball player, just trying to continue to break out of my shell.

On only having two shots in the game against Virginia in January:

He [Young] is just pushing me to be more aggressive, pushing me to get more involved in the offense. Most of that comes back on me not taking advantage of my opportunities. And you know, one-for-two. I mean, I still could have made that second shot, so just trying to correct every mistake that you’ve made, just do better for the next game.

Mike Young

On Justyn Mutts:

He’s the best. He’s a lot of things. He’s a great person, a great person to coach. He’s a really, really talented player. He’s super smart. Guy’s gonna leave here with about nine degrees I believe. I was getting ready to break out the chant, one more year, one more year, one more year. I’m sure that my friends surrounding me here would support me with that feeling. Those are conversations that we’ll have. 

I’ll tell you this: Whatever he chooses to do, I’m on his side. He has been remarkable for me. He’s been remarkable for Virginia Tech, this fan base, Virginia Tech basketball. He is a pillar of what we have put together here in three years. I was aware of Justyn. Our team at Wofford played against Justyn when he was a freshman at High Point. The portal is really bizarre and still get your arms around it. It’s like speed dating, and I’m not a big speed dater.

Justyn’s a COVID person like [Sean] Pedulla. I couldn’t go to Delaware and see him. I couldn’t go to New Jersey and see his family. So all of our recruitment of Justyn was over the phone. He couldn’t come to campus. He could have but I couldn’t see him. We talked about that last week. I think when it was all said and done, it came down to us and Houston, and we knew he was a big deal. We’d seen a lot of film on him. Talked to a really good friend of mine at Hofstra. I talked to just about everybody in that league. Earl Grant at the College of Charleston at that time. Joe Mihalich at Hofstra and I mentioned his name and he said, ‘if you can get him you better take him.’ 

He is Dennis Rodman, in terms of his rebounding. I think he had a big game at Hofstra his last year at Delaware. I think he had like 30 points and a bunch of rebounds. Had a great game. And I watched that game and I agreed totally with Joe’s assessment. I just thought Justyn, along with Aluma on our frontline – Keve hadn’t played here yet – that would be a very formidable frontline for us, and certainly has been.

On Mutts being in contention for the Senior Class award:

Well, there’s not another person on that list, and I’m sure there are a lot of really talented people, there’s not one better than Justyn Mutts. He’s serious now. You win with serious, tough-minded people. And that’s that’s who he is academically and how he comports himself off the floor, in this community, on the basketball floor. He’s the easiest guy in the world – maybe not the easiest guy in the world to coach, but he’s a great guy to coach. You know, just little things, little subtle things like our preparation for Virginia.

I’m 58 years old. I wasn’t a very good player 40 years ago when I was playing. In our preparation for Virginia, and we had a defensive scheme on how we wanted to guard something. And Justyn made the point he said, ‘if you go over top of that, and he comes back to the baseline, [Francisco] Caffaro is so big, I can’t get around him because of where I’ve got to play him.’ And you think about that for a second, say Lord Sakes above. I mean, he’s exactly right. It would be physically impossible for him to make that play.

So we just altered how we were going to defend that baseline screen. Now he can’t rip it back to the baseline. Justyn can help if he tries the ball to the lane. Just little things like that, that I look at him. I look at these guys at times in timeouts [and say], ‘What do you think?’ And they’ve got such a poise about them and such a basketball level of intelligence. It’s rare to be frank. 

Did Young ever have a player record a triple-double at Wofford?

I don’t recall. No. I mean that’s pretty remarkable at any level. I had a kid at North Carolina, we won down there in 2018, that had 19 points, 14 rebounds and nine blocked shots, but not a triple-double.

On Mutts getting the triple-double on a dunk:

I was a little disappointed, I thought he would say something about the coaching. That had a lot more to do with coaching that he gives the old guy credit for, I can assure you that. I’m just kidding, you know that. 

On the tough stretch over the last week:

Yeah, we don’t have any more of those and I’m thankful. We had Pittsburgh in the back-to-back Saturday and Monday. We had the opportunity to get on the road both those weeks. This Tuesday, Wednesday, we were out and about, last Tuesday and Wednesday. Then back together on Thursday to practice. 

Now they’re still in the gym and they’re getting treatment with David Jackson in the weight room, but gives you a chance to decompress a little bit and breathe. We’ll play North Carolina on Saturday. They’ll have another day off on Sunday. And after that it’s Wednesday, Saturday. Tuesday, Louisville. Saturday, Clemson and then the ACC tournament.

So we’ve got them spaced out. We got two more of those doggone 9 p.m. games which I hate and I know you do too. But there’s nothing we can do about that. We do have a chance to really prepare for everybody that we have left on our schedule and feel good about that part of it.

On being more connected defensively:

We’re playing at a high level, we are. Now to sustain that – we had a great practice today, as good as we’ve had. Players play in February and we’ve got what, five left, I guess, in the regular season. You know and the desperosity, I love that word, there’s a level of desperation in all of us. We talk about winning the day. 

We don’t talk about you know if we do this and Virginia does this and North Carolina does this. We control everything before us. Let’s take care of Virginia Tech. Let’s have a great practice tomorrow in our preparation for North Carolina. Let’s play a good ball game on Saturday against another really talented North Carolina team and give it our best shot. It’ll be a great day in the Cassell again. Let’s keep on moving. 

On shutting down Jimmy Boeheim:

I thought we did a good job. I thought we did a good job on their team, defensively. I think you hold somebody to 59 [points], that’s pretty good. You know Buddy [Boeheim] got rolling there a little bit in the second half and we messed around with a different coverage. We ran Aluma at him and I thought that kind of cut him back on his heels in the last six, seven minutes, my time might be off a little bit. I thought that helped us.

I thought Hunter [Cattoor] did a really nice job on Buddy. People don’t understand coach’s zone and how doggone irritating that thing is. That thing, it  takes on many different shapes and moves throughout the course of the year from media timeout to media timeout and if you recall, Hunter hit three big threes in the early going. We made seven threes in the first half. Well, he simply lifts that zone and he’s going to take that away from you. Now you’re playing two-on-one and that’s not easy.

That’s tricky. And Mutts is such a remarkable passer. Aluma had some really nice finishes and you better dunk it because when that thing goes in the high post, those wings are collapsing really quick to cover that up. But you got the post player in a pickle and he didn’t want to commit to Justyn and allow an easy dump off down there. Justyn did a nice job of taking a bounce and getting that frozen. He made a little 10-foot jumper and then Aluma had some opportunities down there, but that was a heck of a win for us. Really good ballgame. 

On responding after Syracuse’s 17-5 run in the second half to tie the game:

Great, great response. They came in playing very well. They’ve won four straight as we had. I think we won four or five straight coming into the game. We knew it was gonna be hard. They lost a post player in the game prior to hours, Jesse Edwards, but I thought the kid that replaced him, Frank Anselem, did a really nice job for them. He had 14 rebounds and gave them good play. But a nice win for our bunch. 

On the student section during the Virginia game:

They may have had a little help before the game. They were in rare form. They were awesome. And you know the Hokie fan base was awesome and just a lot of fun. What a memorable experience for our team. They were fired up to play. I expect maybe a little bit better against North Carolina on Saturday, if that’s possible. 

On the second half performance against Virginia:

We were really, really good defensively in the second half. We rebounded the ball well. I thought we were pretty good. I was a little dismayed that we came in down four. We had three shots that they did everything to get in the basket and they popped out of there. I thought our shots were good. They weren’t coming easily but they were good.

We had a couple of guys miss shots that they just don’t miss. Darius Maddox makes every shot he throws in the air. Nahiem [Alleyne] missed a shot that he typically gets down. I think we only had one turnover at the half. There was nothing that we needed to alter, nothing that we needed to rehash with them at the half. Just had to play a little bit better and play a little bit better we did.

We had a great start to the second half. We had a couple of really nice possessions and Storm [Murphy] got a three down in there. Aluma had an unbelievable catch from Storm to dunk the thing. We were a pretty good outfit throughout the game. I thought we were a really good outfit in the second half. 

On having fewer turnovers over the last two games:

I don’t care. You’ve heard me say it before. In football, turnovers kill you. In basketball, turnovers kill you. In baseball, base on balls kills you. You can’t do that and expect to win. That’ll be a big deal as we turn our attention to North Carolina. 

On Kihei Clark:

He’s a heck of a player, too. He’s a really, really good ball player. I mean, it can happen. He had a tough night. I thought we did a nice job on him. We altered our coverages. We had Hunter on him and he’s such a pivotal matchup for any team. Hunter guarded him and did a really nice job with him in game one, but [Armaan] Franklin had been playing very well. So we moved Hunter to Franklin and we put Storm and Sean on Kihei and Nahiem on [Reece] Beekman. I thought in hindsight that those were the right matchups and helped our defense a lot.

On shutting down Jayden Gardner in the second half:

Now that I’ve gone back and watched it a couple times, I think the lion’s share of that credit goes to goes to Justyn. Mutts did a great job with him. Didn’t foul him, stayed down on his shot fakes. He wants to rip the ball with his right hand to the baseline or he wants to take it out of his left hand and step away from that defender. And Justyn was with him every twitch and every movement that Jayden made. Justyn had it covered up, got shots contested. We rebounded it and away we went. 

On getting to the free throw line against Syracuse and Virginia:

We were just more aggressive. We’re just doing things the way you’re supposed to do it. Victory favors the team that’s most aggressive and we’ve been the most aggressive team quite often here in these last three weeks. Need for that to continue, down the stretch. 

On Saturday being the blackout game:

I hadn’t thought a lot about the blackout. I’ve thought a lot about those guys in Carolina blue. I’ll have my black on, I can assure you that. Our staff will be in black and we’ll look forward to it. It’ll be a lot of fun. 

On Pittsburgh’s win over North Carolina on Wednesday night:

I was in D.C. seeing a young man play and we’re following it on the phone and you know it can happen. Basketball is different. 30-35 ballgames and you can stub your toe and have a poor outing and give credit where credit’s due. Pittsburgh was good and had a good plan and guarded North Carolina. They kind punched them in the mouth and got them back on our heels and they never quite recovered. They made a real stab at it in the last six minutes of the game, but credit to Pittsburgh. Again, they played quite well. 

On Pittsburgh getting 20 points off of North Carolina turnovers in the first half:

Just uncharacteristic of North Carolina. They handle the ball well with Caleb Love and RJ Davis. Leaky Black has been there for a long, long time. This is not a very deep North Carolina team. Really struggled with their depth on the front line. They lost a young man, it was a grad transfer, a transfer [Dawson] Garcia from Marquette, had some things that he had to deal with back home and he’s gone.

They’ve got to get [Armando] Bacot off the floor a little bit. When they do so, [Brady] Manek plays the five and Leakey Black plays the four and that makes things different for them. Certainly, the aircraft carrier Bacot is a load, someone that we’ve spent an inordinate amount of time on here in the last couple of days on how we’re going to defend him. But with another day of preparation and shoot around on Saturday, feel good about where we are at this point. As we all know we’re going to have to play awfully, awfully well if we expect to beat that bunch in here on Saturday. 

On North Carolina playing a 2-3 zone against Pittsburgh:

I saw that in the Pittsburgh game just just a little bit ago. I don’t think Coach [Hubert] Davis wants to play a lot of zone. They only played a couple. I think as much as anything, Bacot had some foul trouble. And they were just trying to get through a segment of that game with a different look and Pittsburgh doesn’t shoot the ball great. But he didn’t play it much.

On North Carolina guard Kerwin Walton:

Walton’s a tricky matchup. Can’t let him catch and shoot it, much like Manek. Walton and Manek, if they are allowed to catch in rhythm and get that thing in the air, they are dynamite shooters. You make them wiggle, you make them put it on the floor, they’re not not as effective. 

That is easier said than done at times, because you’ve got other things on your plate in terms of assisting whoever’s guarding Bacot in the post, but Manek I think had 15 [points] in our first game. We’re gonna have to do a better job on him and in game two. 

On his non-profit, My Turn:

It’s an anti-bullying campaign, and all of my family in education. Dad, middle school principal. Mom was an elementary secretary. That was always a big topic around our house, at times. Each child having the opportunity to go to school, explore, be himself, herself. And then COVID hits and we haven’t had the opportunity to get into schools and visit and take players in and talk with young people.

We will, but we’ve done as much as we can. I’ve done some zooms with some classes and a couple of really good friends over in Radford that are in the school system, teachers, principals, that sort of thing. And we’re gonna do more and more of it as things hopefully continue to get better on the virus front.