Tech Talk Live Notes: Mike Young Talks Hokies Basketball, Vermont

On Thursday, Virginia Tech men’s basketball head coach Mike Young joined Zach Mackey and Mike Burnop on Tech Talk Live. They discussed the Hokies’ 21-point win over Valparaiso, the upcoming game against Vermont on Saturday (4 p.m. ET, ACC Network) and more.

Mike Young

You’re coming off a 71-50 victory over Valparaiso on Saturday. What were your thoughts on that game?

A little better in some areas, regressed in a couple of areas. We’re making progress. We’re making steady progress. I sound like a broken record but on both ends, the 10 turnovers at the half was just bad basketball, sloppy, I don’t know what to attribute that to. Sean [Pedulla] not being in uniform has something to do with it. But goodness gracious, we had turnovers from sure-handed people, that was hard to watch at times. Very, very good defensively, ball-screen defense very good at times. It’s a great game, it’s a team game and it just takes one person out of position, one person not doing his job and something breaks loose and we had that happen. We’re watching plenty of film and will continue to harp on things that are important to us. But we’ve got to continue to improve around here.

You kind of tweaked that starting lineup a little bit. Brandon Rechsteiner started because of Sean’s injury and Mekhi Long started in place of Robbie Beran. What did you kind of get out of that?

Mekhi, he does the things that don’t show up in the final statistics. He’s playing really hard. He’s got a better and better understanding of what we’re looking for on both ends. He was really good defensively on Saturday against Valpo. He brings a lot to the table and does a lot of good things that affect winning. He’s going to continue to play more and more. We’re talking about possibly moving him down to the three, he can guard one through four very well, he rebounds the ball night-in and night-out. I don’t know how many he had against Valpo but he’s doing a good job for us. I talked to MJ Collins about it, bringing him off the bench. MJ did not play very well against Valpo but was outstanding against Louisville so I’m not real sure. It depends on Sean’s availability. I do expect him to play. So we’ll see as we get closer to game time.

You talk about Mekhi Long and his defense. We all know how good of a defender Hunter Cattoor is. How much of that is guys from a young age learning it or is that defensive-minded basketball something that they learn later on in their career?

Well, Cattoor couldn’t guard anything when he got here. Lateral quickness wasn’t good enough. It’s about seeing plays. It’s about having some miles under your wheels. [Brandon] Rechsteiner, Jaydon Young for instance, right now, they just haven’t seen enough plays. Consequently, there’s gonna be a couple of instances every game that is striking how inept they are. At times, they’re playing really hard. They know exactly what we’re looking for. They just haven’t seen quite enough plays. Cattoor was like that. Mekhi Long I’m sure was like that early in his career. I don’t recall a freshman, a young person that comes into a program ready to compete and do the things necessary, possession by possession. Just the speed is different. The bodies are different. The actions are different. There’s no replacement for experience. There’s no replacement for guys that have been around and again seen a lot of plays.

How about Mylyjael Poteat? He had six points and six rebounds against Valpo. He’s kind of giving you steady minutes.

It’s probably not fair to always talk about Mylyjael and Lynn Kidd together. But here’s another night where we get 14 points from Lynn, six from Mylyjael. 20 points from that spot and 12 rebounds from that spot. That’s pretty good productivity. Mylyjael did play well. He’s not afraid to put his body on you. If he can get the ball around the basket and get that one-two step down and lead with that front foot and score with either hand… He makes his foul shots very consistently. At Auburn, we talked about it, he had three opportunities at Auburn, and he’s looking for contact instead of just going up strong and finishing at the rim. If you get fouled, great. If you don’t, get the thing on the rim. He did have a three-point play the old-fashioned way against Valpo the other night, but I thought Mylyjael played a good ball game. I really did.

Lynn Kidd has been outstanding from the free throw line this year. What has he done specifically to get there?

He works at it. He really does. I don’t know if he’s shooting 100 foul shots after practice or anything like that. But during the course of our practice, he is… I don’t want to say automatic from 15 and in, but that is a very comfortable shot for him. He has worked on that part of it and I think that carries over to the foul line, he’s comfortable there. He’s getting that thing down consistently, those free ones, and he’s getting fouled a lot. He shot six again the other night against Valpo. We’re ranked nationally in getting fouled and getting to the foul line, which I always think is a very big statistic. We talk about making more than our opponent takes, we made 15 and [Valpo] took eight. Probably good ACC officiating had something to do with that, but that’s an encouraging statistic. We’ve had that in our first 10 or however many we played. We’ve had that in three or four instances, which is encouraging. 

It’s also encouraging to see Tyler Nickel make those four threes the other night. He was back on his game again, wasn’t he?

Yeah, he had a couple of good looks at it. They’re all like this, they need the ball in a timely fashion. Time is money. And in our game, it’s got to be delivered where that shooter wants it. That occurred and he did the rest, he shot it well. I thought he moved well, played awfully well for us.

It felt like the same thing with Tyler Nickel and Robbie Beran — their first shot went in and you could almost see it in their face, it just clicked. Robbie had nine points, but it felt like he played with more confidence.

Yeah, he had a good game overall, not because he made those two threes, where he’s really struggled. I think he made a three against South Carolina in the first half and it’s been a real struggle for him. The kid is a very good shooter. And we continue to encourage him, he works at it very hard, every day. He’s a really good defender. He’s a kid that has seen a lot in his five years in college. So good to see the production out of our three spot and our four spot. We’ve struggled a bit at those two spots in terms of points per game. Tyler had a good game the other night. I thought Mekhi and Robbie did awfully well for us at that four spot.

You have these two non-conference games left before ACC play starts to kick back up and you get 19 in a row. What are you seeing the big picture that you want to see have to happen after these next two against Vermont and American?

Without being totally specific, and talking for half an hour, which you don’t want to hear, just continue to get better. And nothing more, nothing less. We had better stretches against Valpo than we’ve had in the previous couple of games. This one on Saturday now is a good one. Vermont is good. We put a lot of time into it already. We’ve got a couple more days here as we prepare for the Catamounts, but just continue to make progress and in practice, see kids continue to play the right way and have guys that are prepared to do it night in and night out. And I do think we’re knocking on the door in that regard.

You talked about it in your postgame conference after Valpo — the Radford Bobcats won the state championship last week. As a Radford native, that was cool to see, wasn’t it?

My uncle coached over there in 19 something. He was there for three years, I think. He coached the last state championship team in 1972. And those were great Radford teams. I have not seen the Bobcats play since coming back to the New River Valley. But Coach [Michael] Crist over there, his dad, Dave, was a legendary coach at Blacksburg High School back during my time. A great man and a bunch of great teams. I think they’ve won two state championships. Radford High Schools have a great football tradition, have won a lot of games, that’s a real accomplishment. When you think of the state of Virginia and all the schools you gotta get through to accomplish that, it’s pretty cool. I’m happy for my old hometown and the Bobcats of Radford.

How do you navigate finals week and everything this week with the guys and trying to get the shots in and practice done?

We finish up Wednesday, so I don’t mess with them a whole lot. They’ve been in here every day lifting, working on their game. We have not practiced and I thought we had an opportunity to do that, having a week between games, we’ll have ample opportunity to practice and do the things that we need to do in preparation for Vermont. David Jackson has his hands on them in terms of lifting and conditioning on the floor, on a treadmill, those sorts of things and it is an opportunity to get well in some areas. Certainly thinking about Sean, and we’ll know more about that. I do feel good about it. We all feel good about having him back in uniform on Saturday. We had a couple other nicks and bruises that we needed to address and there’s no better time than now when we got a little space between games.

It’s also going to be tough because the students are gone for the next month. Are you going to miss them on the semester break?

Oh my gosh, I hate it, December without our students on campus, but I wish all those guys well on their exams and getting home safely for the holidays with their families. Not the same without having them here and inside the Cassell for our games. But we’ll have them back soon enough.

How are things on the recruiting front?

I think really well. We signed Tyler Johnson out of Florida and R.J. Jones out of Florida. I just think in this landscape, we will always be in search of two or three incoming freshmen and then you’ll sit tight, cool your jets and prepare for the portal season in the spring. Right now, it looks like we’ll need two, that remains to be seen if that was in fact the number, but I’ve been out a lot here in the last 10 days seeing juniors. I was in D.C., I was in Maryland, bounced around. We’ve got a couple of tournaments to see during the Christmas holidays, so feel great about it. The staff is doing a really good job with it. Got a lot of young people to see here coming up.

Basketball is such a long season. It was kind of nice this year that you got the game on the 21st and you get a little bit of a break between then and the 30th. The guys get a few days to go home and kind of come back get ready for the ACC schedule.

That’s always been important to me. I think it’s healthy to get them home and around family. I would take a little bit longer break if I had the opportunity. We’ve got American on the 21st. Of course, the ACC dictates the league schedule. So we’ll get them back in here the day after Christmas and get going again. Like you said, 19 head knockers staring you in the face and you know it starts off with a bang at Wake Forest and then Florida State, but to get them home and around their families and rest and have a home cooked meal. And they come back and they’re fired up and ready to go again and they know what’s ahead of them. So let’s take care of these next two, and play well and get better and get them out of here for a bit.

We’ve got one ACC game already in the books for the Hokies, but what do you think of the state of the ACC conference this season?

I haven’t seen everybody intentionally. We’re so focused on our team and preparation for what’s next for us. I don’t think I’ve seen Duke, I’ve seen North Carolina very little. I’ve seen some really good teams. I know Clemson is really good. Haven’t seen a lot of them. I saw some of their Alabama game. I think our league is very strong. We’ve got five teams in the top 25 right now, there’s going to be a lot of change and movement in those standings as we go along, want to take care of the Hokies and make sure that we’re in the thick of things as we head down the stretch.

Do you have any Christmas traditions in the Young house?

I read ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas to my children. Daughter’s 24, my son is 20 and before they go to bed, we have done it since they were little tiny people and still have the book. We go to South Carolina with Margaret’s family there. Spend some time in the Palmetto State before heading back late Christmas day, maybe early the 26th. So it’s an enjoyable time for all of us. We have a great time.

Vermont is coming up here on Saturday. TJ Long is one of the top 3-point shooters in the country for the Catamounts. What stands out about them?

I played John Becker, their head coach, a long time ago in 2016. Beat me on a last-second shot by a kid named Trae Bell-Haynes. He was a really good player. They are well-coached, they are hard-nosed. Not great size but consistent size across the board. They can really shoot the ball. They average nine-and-a-half made threes a game, they do not turn the ball over. His teams have always been hard to compete against. Stingy defensively. Their positional work on the defensive end is something I have always admired. So it’ll be a hard one and a really good college basketball game and one that will prepare us for rougher league play. We’re going to have play well to win.

He’s got a heck of a record there, 288-116.

I think the guy has won his league the last seven years. He is a talented man, a friend of mine, it’ll be good to see him. I do not look forward to competing against him, I can tell you that.