Tech Talk Live Notes: Mike Jones And Christian Webster Preview Notre Dame

On Thursday night, Virginia Tech basketball associate head coach Mike Jones and assistant coach Christian Webster joined Zach Mackey and Mike Burnop on Tech Talk Live at McClain’s at First & Main. They discussed the loss to Boston College, recruiting and the upcoming game against Notre Dame.

Mike Jones

How are things as you prepare for Notre Dame?

We’ve got a lot of great basketball ahead of us, we hope. We’re going to keep working. Last night was disappointing. We felt like we prepared. We felt like we were ready. Obviously, coming off the game against UVa, we thought we were in a better place, but we weren’t. We didn’t get it done last night. We’re ready to get back at it on Saturday.

What were the points you talked about at halftime against Boston College to try to get going in the second half?

We were really struggling with our ball screen coverage. With Quinten Post, who did not play against us the first time we played them, he just gives them a totally different dynamic with his ability to shoot the ball. Then the game goes like that sometimes, guys that have not made shots for them all year long got hot.

No offense to them but they’re 340th or something like that in the country in three-point shooting. And yesterday they go 12-for-24, some of them very contested. The stars aligned for it to go that way. Again, I thought we were prepared. It wasn’t good enough and we have to do better.

It seems like the last couple of times the Hokies have played Boston College, an unexpected guy like Chas Kelley goes off:

Yeah, I’ve seen Chas play a lot. He played on AAU team with Buchanan and Rodney Rice, so I saw a lot of him and was very excited for his career at Boston College. I just was hoping it wasn’t against us. He shot the ball very well, shot the ball very confidently, and he’s a young man who wants to score. He’s very aggressive shooting the ball, but he hasn’t shot it that way in his career as Boston College so far. Last night, he just got hot and it really hurt us.

Quinten Post had a huge game for Boston College – 24 points, 16 of which came in the first half:

Our rotation isn’t very deep right now because of the injuries and things like that. We try to do the best job we can to keep fouls off of Justyn [Mutts], we try to keep fouls off of Sean [Pedulla] and Hunter [Cattoor]. We felt like putting Justyn on Post later in the game would be to our advantage because we wouldn’t have to worry about him having to sit early on because of fouls. Justyn did a great job.

The other guys, they did as well as they could, they were following what we were trying to do. We just got caught up in a couple of those plays where we did double him, and he was able to throw out and guys were able to get open looks or he got open. He’s a really good player. He obviously showed that last night.

What has been your and Coach Young’s philosophy when going through some of those woes where shots just aren’t going?

You have to put a confidence into the guys and, let’s be honest, we didn’t play great but still scored 76 points. The way we play, a lot of times that’s going to be enough to beat a lot of the teams we play, especially with the pace we play at. We have guys that can make shots.

We have guys that every now and then are going to go through what they went through last night. We’ve prepared to get open shots for guys in certain spots and to have them not take those kind of defeats what we’ve built up in them for years for some of them, but obviously this season.

They had a +10 and a rebounding edge when they were negative coming into the game, what was going on with that?

If we’re being honest, we missed more shots than they missed, so they’re going to have a chance to get more of those rebounds. When you start to look at numbers like that, you do have to take into consideration that we didn’t make enough shots, so they had way more opportunities to get some defensive rebounds that we didn’t get because they made shots.

How is the game plan changed when you prepare for a guy like Jaeden Zackery and then a guy like Chas Kelley comes in instead?

Jaeden Zackery is a huge part of their team and the engine that keeps them running. We were definitely locked in on what we were going to have to do on him, talking about who started on him and then who would get him in crunch time. He ran into Sean Pedulla. Justyn Mutts tried to outlet a pass to Sean, maybe seven or eight minutes into the game, and Sean and Zackery ran into each other right in front of the scores table. Sean got up okay, and Zackery didn’t. It took a while for them to kind of figure things out.

We saw him walking off the court, then he was in the handshake line at the end of the game. Prayers to him, I hope he’s okay. He’s a really good player. But with him not being in the game, we had to change focus on what we want to do. [Makai] Ashton-Langford had the ball in his hands a lot more, I think he finished with 12 assists. That’s not his role. Zackery, again, he’s the engine that gets them running. Ashton-Langford wasn’t as aggressive offensively which you would think that would be to our advantage, but he passed the ball so well yesterday it wound up hurting us.

How good was Grant Basile, 33 points throughout the game?

He’s been pretty good here lately, too. We have to try to ride that momentum. The great thing about him is he’s the same guy. He could have a bad game, he’s in the gym getting up extra shots. He could have had a great game, he’s in the gym, getting up extra shots. He’s a worker. He’s a gym rat. He fits who Mike Young is and who the Hokies are, and we’re very happy to have him and we’re hoping to be able to ride him and a couple other guys starting to step up here into the postseason.

He took a shot to the elbow. Anything serious?

Not at all. He was in practice today. He was just fine.

That was a fun victory against Virginia on Saturday:

Yeah, I think it was one of the opportunities we had to [get to] really build our résumé here as we get closer to the postseason. I don’t think the schedule or the records or anything matter when we play UVa. I learned very quickly when I got here, we’re not supposed to like those guys. They don’t like us. It was a very rewarding victory because I know how much the kids wanted to win that, I know how much we prepared to win and the coaches, the game plan, everything, great job. The guys went out and executed.

Virginia never led in that game. You had an answer for everything they did, and you scored 40 points in the paint:

Again, Grant Basile. Justyn, Lynn [Kidd], Mylyjael [Poteat], Mylyjael gets in the game and affects what we do immediately. Lynn Kidd has been such a hard worker, it’s so great to see him start to get the opportunities to produce and he does it. Justyn and Grant have been just linchpins for us all year long. As long as they keep doing that… Justyn is a Hokie. I mean, he is exactly what you would want a Hokie to be. He leads us and he was amazing in that game just as the other guys were.

John Camden has really embraced the role of helping on defense and not just trying to score:

We don’t win without him. Talking about the injuries we’ve got right now, he provides some depth for us. If we don’t have him, things just kind of go left and we’d have to play a bigger lineup much more often. Guarding people, John’s really embraced that side of the ball, he can really shoot it.

John is incredibly talented offensively, but for him to go through a game, he did not score but played so much and was so instrumental in us winning. He’s really embracing that part. And again, there are brighter days ahead for him because he’s learning how to play the other side of the ball, too.

MJ Collins has been banged around a little bit, had to wear that mask. Do you feel like that affected his game?

Yeah, it definitely did. He’s still getting used to it, and every day that goes by it’ll get easier. He got hit right before halftime too in the face, so that didn’t help either. He’s a warrior, though. Coach Young talks about him all the time. He is going to have an amazing career here. He is a hard worker. He’s another young man who, he’s a Hokie. He has embraced what being a Hokie is.

He’s in the gym every single day. If he’s not in the gym, he wants to get with a coach and watch film. He is really embracing. When the season started, who knew how much he was going to play? But he’s starting now and again, all the success we will have before the season ends, MJ Collins will be a huge part of it.

It seemed like it was an emphasis for Justyn Mutts in that game to be able to get his own shots up:

A guy like Justyn who, I won’t say I don’t understand it because I do understand it, it’s just so rare to have someone be as talented as he is who doesn’t care if he shoots the ball or not. I mean, he is so willing to pass it and he’ll have the ball, and I know sometimes people get frustrated because he’s close to the basket, but he’ll throw it out for a guy for three.

He’s just wired to be a playmaker. He’s not always going to be the guy that’s so aggressive to score the basketball. He wants to share that ball. Again, I think he’s one of the best forwards in the country. He’s one of the most unselfish players I’ve ever been around. We’re going to use that as well as the other pieces we’re talking about to finish the season the right way.

You had an unbelievable run at DeMatha [High School], you coached Rodney Rice for one year. How is he holding up?

He’s hanging in there. He’s frustrated, he wanted to play, he worked so hard to get ready for a season here and then he gets hurt. Then he works so hard to get back so he can take part in this season and then he gets hurt again almost immediately. He is frustrated, but looking at him smiling in the gym today, his right hand is the one that’s hurt, he is doing so much with his left hand right now. It’s not going to do anything but help him be a much better a basketball player next season when he puts the Hokie uniform on.

I am so proud of him. He’s doing great in the classroom. He almost had straight A’s his first semester. I know his family was excited about that. He truly has an incredible future ahead of him, and he’s going to help the Hokies win a lot of basketball games. We just have to get him healthy.

You went from being a high school coach to a college coach and have seen both sides of the recruiting process. How is recruiting going?

I think there’s a science to this that I’ve been privy to see what all of these other schools have done, what all these other coaches have done. I can sit in a room with one of my players and have, I won’t say names, but high-level coaches and they’re trying to pitch them on what they’re going to do, how they’ll fit in and things like that.

Then they leave and then my player leans over and says, “Hey, I really liked this, I liked that he said that.” Or the thing that I’ve really embraced is all the conversations I had about what they didn’t like and what they didn’t think was real or genuine and things like that. I’ve been able to use all that. Going through that for 19 seasons, I never knew that that would be something that I could actually take and utilize, but now it’s something that I think is very valuable because I don’t think there are a lot of people in the position that I’m in that have that information.

How do you work through the flow of coming off a game like Saturday’s and then a game like last night. It must be difficult to stay on course sometimes?

I wouldn’t say difficult. I just think we have to keep reminding ourselves what the goal is. If we were a program that didn’t just come off an ACC championship, didn’t have a Mike Young as our head coach and the leadership that he brings, the evenkeeledness that he brings to us. Maybe there are ebbs and flows, but I think when everything was going great, we were 11-1, Coach Young was demanding the best from us.

When we lost a few games in a row, Coach Young was demanding the best from us. We win a game, lose a game, have a big win Saturday, lose last night, Coach Young is still that same person. I think that’s what endears him to his players. That’s why people want to play for him. That’s why it’s easy to recruit guys to come play for him, because of his personality. He’s been the same, he’s been a great leader. He’s going to get us right.

What was your favorite experience playing in the CBA or International Basketball Association?

My favorite place was Portugal by far, not even close. No offense, but I absolutely hated Finland. I was there in the winter, close to the North Pole. Literally I would go into the gym around 10 a.m., it was still dark. I would come out of the gym around 2:30, three o’clock and the sun was going down. So literally, the daylight while I was there, it was all me inside, indoors. Never saw the ground because it was always snow or ice. It was just cold, like people talk about it’s cold here. It’s not cold.

I love Portugal, was in Lisbon, was 10 minutes from the beach, 10 minutes from the golf course, 10 minutes from the casino, and 10 minutes from my gym. I literally enjoyed myself as much as I possibly could, probably enjoyed myself too much. But I loved playing overseas, it was a great experience. Now, with guys that are good but aren’t good enough to play an NBA, I can impart some knowledge to them as they pursue their basketball journey.

What was it like to coach the USA national team and win a gold medal?

One of the best basketball experiences I’ve ever had. Obviously, the elite level talent that you get to coach, people think that’s just easy. It’s not. You don’t always necessarily pick the 12 best players, but you pick the 12 best players that make the best team. Guys that are used to being the man on their team and having them take a secondary or even the 11th or 12th guy on the team, but they’re used to playing every single minute.

Working the psychological part of that into a team, anything you can do with USA Basketball is amazing. It’s the epitome of what this sport is all about, and I cherish those. I go recruit from all those guys that coached with me, helped me run camps and things like that, those are the people that I’m going to recruit their players from, because I know they’re coming from good stock with very good players with bright futures.

Christian Webster

Last week has the highs of the highs and the lows of the lows:

That’s the ebbs and flows of a season. You win one, you lose one. The sun comes up the next day and you just have to figure it out. Put one foot in front of the other, try to play a little bit better on Saturday.

It seems we’ve been seeing crazier games in the ACC this year:

It’s definitely different. The league is better now this year. Honestly, it’s probably the best the league has been since Coach Young has been here. I think the theme, more so than anything, is that it’s really hard to win on the road. All the games I’ve watched, the road teams are having a really tough time. Obviously, that wasn’t the case last night. But yeah, usually that is the case, it’s been kind of weird.

A lot of teams like Clemson and Pitt, who were expected to finish at the bottom, are leading the ACC:

Yeah, and a lot of it is not the way we thought it was going to go. NC State, Pitt, Clemson. You don’t see Duke and North Carolina being in the middle of the pack in the ACC, Louisville being down there at the bottom, Notre Dame. It hasn’t gone the way we thought it was going to go, that’s for sure.

If I told you at the beginning of the season you’d have three wins in the ACC and it was Duke, Carolina and Virginia, what would you think?

I would think you were crazy as I don’t know what. But I will take it. I wish we had some more on top of that. We’ll get them, though.

What have you seen out of Notre Dame, how are you preparing?

With Notre Dame, they always are really skilled. They always can really shoot the ball. They play well together, they assist a lot of their made field goals. We have to keep them in front. We have to get those shots contested against guys like Nate Laszewski, Cormac Ryan who really good shooters. They’re a much older team. They’ve got guys that are sixth-year, fifth-year guys. We’ll be tested, but we’ve got some fifth- and sixth-year guys too.

For scouting, it’s easier if you play a team twice, but you only play Notre Dame once. Walk us through that process:

Yeah, it’s different. We kind of split it up every third. We kind of stick with the same teams every year. I’m familiar with the teams that I’ve had last year, Coach Jones is familiar with the teams he had last year. You just kind of get more familiar as you go along. I’ve had UNC, Duke, UVA. Those are those are always scouts that I definitely hone in on.

How does the process go with rewatching games, especially the previous Notre Dame games. Do the managers just cut it together? How does all of that go?

Yeah, they do a big part of it. The managers cut it up, get it to the coaches and make sure we have the film exactly right so we can just hit the play button and watch it. So that’s a huge help. We always get and watch the other team’s last five games. If there’s anything else after that, it’s just kind of your choice.

There’s a game they might have lost, I’m looking at Georgia Tech, and they beat Miami. I’m looking at that game like, “How in the world did they beat Miami?” It just depends. You definitely look at the last five, but then if there’s anything else outside of that, you just kind of pick and choose.

Why do you think the Hokies struggle so much against Boston College?

Oh, my goodness, the curse of the Eagles. I wish we didn’t have to play them every year. It’s tough. I mean, they’ve got our number. Five in a row, even dating back to when Buzz [Williams] was here. I mean, they used to give us a hard time. I remember being up there and Chris Clarke fouled out of the game with a double technical or something crazy.

We needed a miracle to get out of there in double overtime. Then we get back to the plane and the plane doesn’t take off because of ice in Boston. We had to spend another night. It’s always been a disaster with the Eagles. I wish they would change leagues or something, I wish they would go to the Big East.

On Saturday vs. UVa, Cassell Coliseum was rocking, the bacon bricks came out. Jayden Gardner of all people missed the two free throws. How was the energy in the building?

Oh, my goodness. Well, it was a great atmosphere. We had a big-time recruit there. To get that win in front of him and his family, and especially for our program to beat the Wahoos, them being top 10 in the country, just puts a cherry on top.

Tell us about where the program was after Buzz Williams left versus where it is now?

Yeah, that was a dark time. I remember being at the Final Four not knowing if I was going to stay here, not knowing Buzz has just taken the Texas A&M job. I was at the Final Four, no logo on the shirt, because I didn’t know if I was going to stay at Tech. The Sunday night of the Final Four before the game on Monday, the national championship. I got a call from Coach Young, I had just got back here from the Final Four.

He called me and said, “Hey, I’m getting the job. I’ll be there Monday, the press conference is on Monday. I want to talk to you Monday after the press conference. We have to hit the ground running.” We had to go recruiting on Thursday. On Monday, we’re talking, I’m sending him names of guys. I’m just like, I’m working for this guy, but am I? Where’s my check? Am I good? It ended up obviously going well, and we went on the road that Thursday and I just remember coach’s head spinning.

He’s been at Wofford for 30 years. He’s institutionalized for Wofford and he comes here and I’m like, “Coach, we’re getting on the plane on Thursday.” He’s like, “We’re going to Roanoke, where we flying? American or Delta?” I said, “No, we’re flying out of Blacksburg, we got a private plane.” He’s like, “How do we do that? Like, where do we go?” It’s like “Coach, I’ll email whoever, whatever.” We figured it out.

I remember that first time going recruiting on that Thursday, we went to Oak Hill, we went to Paul VI up in Northern Virginia, tried to get the kid that we had committed signed back that had committed to Buzz. It was a whirlwind. It was an absolute whirlwind, and I remember getting on that plane was me, Coach Young and Kevin Giltner. There was nobody else in the office. Ryan Nadeau, our video guy now, ended up staying around. We were the only people there. We have four players that were just trying to fill the team. It was dark and gloomy to say the least.

How has recruiting been going?

It’s everything. At the end of the day, you can drop all the plays you want, if you don’t have somebody to come off that screen and bang a shot it doesn’t matter. So we try to find guys that really fit Coach Young, that really fit his system, his style. First and foremost, guys that are tough, guys that play hard, guys that can shoot, that are skilled and have talent to play in the Atlantic Coast Conference because as you know, this thing is hard. It’s really hard and you need some really good players to help you in game.