Tech Talk Live Notes: Mike Young And Pete D’Amour

On Wednesday, Virginia Tech men’s basketball coach Mike Young and softball coach Pete D’Amour joined Zach Mackey and Mike Burnop on Tech Talk Live. Young’s team is back in action on Saturday at Miami (Noon ET, ESPN) while D’Amour & Co. open their season on Friday, Feb. 9 vs. Illinois in a tournament in Auburn, Ala.

Mike Young

You guys went 1-1 this past week. You had the win against Georgia Tech, 91-67. Were you pleased after that game on Saturday?

We played very well and I’ll tell you what, league play, you just never know. Georgia Tech beats North Carolina last night at home. It’s one of those years I guess, every year is that kind of year. You better be ready to go or you’ll get clipped. I admired Georgia Tech prior to them coming in, watched a lot of film on them, and had Boston College, obviously, with the nine o’clock start on Tuesday. So we had ample time to prepare for the Yellow Jackets coming in. They have good players. Everybody has good players. But I thought we were very connected on both ends and we played a good ball game and got out there with a nice ACC win.

And then Duke comes in and man, they’ve got some good players.

They sure do. I’ve gone back and watched it two or three times and I can’t fault our effort. Our kids played really hard. We did some good things, not enough good things. I’ve said it a couple of times now, people don’t want to hear it — Duke played better than we did. Duke was ready to go. I saw them play Saturday against Clemson at home. Clemson should have won the game, they were up with the ball with a minute to play and a couple of terrible turnovers and lost the game. We had a good plan, our team gave us everything in terms of executing that plan. Needless to say, we didn’t play well enough to win and we let those guys get out of here with one. A game with a lot on the line. But 5-5 at the midpoint is not great, not bad. And we’ve got plenty of opportunities in front of us to make our mark and get to the postseason. That is still the overriding goal and let’s get after it here.

What was that 48 hours like from the Saturday game to the Monday game? 

We played at five o’clock on Saturday. I will go back after everybody’s gone to bed and watch that game, just so I don’t miss anything. And then we got in there at 10 on Sunday. We were there for a long time. That’s the only time we’re playing Duke in the regular season. They haven’t changed a lot, teams like that don’t. They are exceptionally well-coached. But you know what you’re going to look at, but we got out there late Sunday night, back in Monday morning, looking at more and getting everything to our team. That’s hard. We went on the floor and walked through some things. We didn’t rev them up. I thought we needed every ounce of energy we could have going into Monday’s game. It’s a quick turnaround. We’ve got another one coming up. We’re at North Carolina and then at home against Virginia here in a couple of weeks not long at all. So you’re gonna have a couple of those every year. That’s kind of the formula that we’ve always stood by.

You guys had a season-low of four turnovers, which is outstanding. Short lineup, and boy, Sean Pedulla and Hunter Cattoor had to log a lot of minutes, didn’t they?

They did. We’ve gone that route now for a bit. We started Boston College through Georgia Tech and into Duke and that’s a lot. So much of it goes into matchups, who can guard who and who cannot guard a particular player. We’ve got a little more flexibility Saturday against Miami than we had here the last couple of games. But I continue to say I’ve got to do a better job of getting them off the floor a little bit more. Those two kids sort of bring great value to our program.

Seven turnovers against Georgia Tech, four turnovers against Duke. That’s been a steady improvement. Have you been pleased with what you’ve seen with ballhandling? 

Well, we only had one way to go after kicking the darn thing 20 times at NC State and winning, which defies all logic, and 15 times against Boston College. Suffice to say we harped on that quite a bit over the last week. We harp on it every day. We harp on it in July when we’re getting everybody together and getting all cranked up. But much better, you gotta get a shot every time down. You can’t turn the ball over. I’ve said it to you guys, you cannot walk people in baseball or softball, you can’t turn the ball over in football. If you do, you’re putting yourself behind the eight-ball, and basketball is no different. You’ve got to care for the ball. You’ve got to get a shot every time down the floor, hopefully two or three shots at times during the course of the game. And if you do that, you’re gonna put yourself in position to win.

Tyrese Proctor is a really good defender, Hunter had to work hard to get those 15 points.

Well, coach Jon Scheyer is pretty good. And I go back and look at last year’s game down there. I looked at both games on Sunday prior to the Duke game, and they guarded him very differently at Duke than they did here last year. Hunter, that is. We would take Hunter out and Duke would take Proctor out, it was the same thing. I didn’t take Hunter out very much on Monday. They do a good job with him in jumping some things and getting on top of him so it’s hard for him to get to certain cuts. So credit to Duke. If we saw them again in the tournament, we’d have to make some adjustments.

We were able to loosen it up and get him back door, but they weren’t going to change. And I assume his thinking was they can’t hit enough of those to beat us. We got three, we got something we put in on Sunday. And something that we’ve only run a couple of times, we’ve gotten it every time we ran it. We got it against Boston College, we call it ‘Raider,’ that freed him up and got him back door to the basket, lifted the floor. And Robbie Beran does a great job of making that pass, but [Cattoor] scored 15, and boy, he really worked for it. We need 12 to 15 shots from Hunter in a game and we weren’t able to manufacture that and that’s something I’ve got to do a better job with.

Talking about Robbie Beran and his play to move the ball around, get it to the right guys. I know from talking with you after the game that you’ve been pleased with what you’ve seen out of Robbie.

Robbie’s found his niche here, if you will. He’s shooting the ball better. He had a couple of cracks at it the other night that he typically gets down and doesn’t, but he’s defending. He is great with our offense, has a real understanding of it. Took a little bit of time, and that can happen. Robbie is doing great, really proud of him.

MJ Collins had a nice game as well. Played a lot of minutes, scored pretty well and also had three assists.

He got a good line. He did play well, 7-of-13 from the field, made three threes, three assists, one turnover. He’s a more capable rebounder, who only had two defensive rebounds. But did a nice job with Jeremy Roach, who he was matched with, did a pretty good job with Jared McCain when he was matched with him. He’s had some lingering injuries and nothing that kept him from playing. But I think he’s getting over those, working on his game more and is doing very, very well. He had a really good game against Boston College and Georgia Tech. So MJ is coming into his own here and at a really good time here for our club.

One of the big stories coming off of that Georgia Tech game was Lynn Kidd and Mylyjael Poteat, they combined for 36 points, just kind of had their way down in the paint.

We thought we had a huge advantage with it. I feel pretty good about our matchups with those two kids most every game we go to. We head to Miami on Saturday, Lynn Kidd was 8-of-8 against Norchad Omier at our place. They were good on Monday against Duke. I thought Ryan Young gave Duke valuable minutes and Kyle Filipowski, my staff makes fun of me, I butcher his name all the time. Davidson had a kid Tyler Kalinoski years ago that was a really good player. But Filipowski is a man and he is a seven-foot NBA level player and we had some difficulties with him.

Duke had some foul trouble early on, but Ryan Young comes off the bench and he’s a big man too.

He’s been around for a while. I think it’s his sixth year in college basketball. He’s got strong hands. He has a big body, plays really hard. They don’t play many people. I think they played seven the other night. I guess they started Mark Mitchell at the four and Filipowski at the five. They’ll play Sean Stewart a little bit. He played very little in our game, maybe three minutes. A lot of teams at this point of the year, their bench gets shorter and shorter. And now you’re gonna roll with those who you think give you your best opportunity to win and I see a lot of us doing that with that.

We talked about the foul trouble for Duke and Ryan Young picked up four, Filipowski got in foul trouble. It looked like the Hokies kept going inside trying to go right at them.

That was the plan. Mitchell is such a unique player. He didn’t score the ball great, but what a good looking basketball player, 6-9, 6-10, whatever he is, had eight rebounds. He’s such a flexible guy, can guard the guards, all five spots on the front line with his length and with his feet and his quickness on the perimeter. He’s a tough kid. He’s a good basketball player and does a lot of things for Duke’s team that may not show up on the stat sheet.

Is there a fine line between being aggressive and too aggressive? You guys only had two fouls in the first half. And I know you want to not foul, but you’ve got to be aggressive and assertive.

I’ve never agreed with a person that says if you’re not fouling, you’re not playing as hard as you need to play. I disagree with that. But back on our heels a little bit. They brought it to us. I’m not sure how to reference it, both teams had a lot on the line. Unfortunately for us, they were better than the Hokies on that particular night.

Sean Pedulla is just one basket away from joining the 1,000-point club. What have you thought of his progression of what he’s done here at Virginia Tech?

It’s gotten better and better every year. I thought it was terrific against Boston College and against Georgia Tech. He was a point guard. He distributed well, he picked his spots offensively and played really good basketball. A couple weeks ago, he’s ACC Player of the Week when he had such a big game against Miami. And I forget who was after Miami. He’s playing well, put together good years and gotten better every year he’s been with us and gotten bigger and stronger, confident young person, good basketball player.

How about Hunter Cattoor getting his 300th 3-pointer? That’s pretty amazing.

I hope he gets several more before our time together comes to an end, and he’s very capable. We needed to get him unglued the other night, he made two, but man, he worked for them. We talked about it, but Proctor did a good job on him. Duke’s team did a good job on him coming off pindowns and they would show and extend that cut a little bit. But you know what, what an accomplishment to ring the bell 300 times in a career. Again, I hope he’s got a lot more in it before it comes to an end.

What is halftime like? What’s going on in there at halftime and what’s the goal? How does that all go?

We come off the floor. I go in immediately. We all come in, staff, everyone. And I don’t say very much at all. I’ll address them briefly. And then we head across the hall to the women’s locker room where we will meet until the 10-minute mark on the game clock, which is in both of our locker rooms so we can monitor that. I go back in and we’ll watch some film, which is legal now, not a lot, maybe five to eight clips of things we saw in that half and something that we may have made a mistake on. Typically it’s a ball-screen coverage, tweak that a little bit. But there’s not wholesale changes.

I think that’s a common misconception is the halftime adjustments. I think that’s the most overrated thing I’ve ever heard in athletics. Football or basketball, someone makes some outstanding halftime adjustments where you don’t have time to breathe. You only truly get six minutes from the 10-minute mark to the four-minute mark or the 10-minute mark to the five-minute mark. You want to get them back on the floor and get them going again. So you’re really refining, if you will, you’re really just emphasizing again, how you want to guard something, or maybe an action that you saw offensively that you want to go to early in the half and see if they’ve made any adjustments. So that’s kind of how it rolls out.

What’s it been like for you out there wearing suits again?

I think that’s how we’re supposed to dress, I really do. I’ve got a lot of older friends, one of which is in Spartanburg, who is adamant that he says, ‘Mike, you have all these really nice suits and you’re dressed in comfortable attire, I think you’re wrong.’ I’ve had a couple of people in Blacksburg who have said the same thing to me. We’ll stay there at home and I gotta be honest with you, it is so convenient and so easy to pack going on the road and dressing as I’m dressed right now than hauling that suit all over. So I’ll meet folks halfway and we’ll stay in suits at home for the rest of the year. And we’ll reconsider at the end of the year in terms of how we dress on the road.

This is the first time that you’re facing a team this year for the second time, the second time you go up against Miami. Does that change anything?

No, not really. We got started today, we’ll have a full day tomorrow in preparation. It helps a little bit actually having been in the league so long now and played coach Jim Larrañaga so many times. You may see a new action, you may see something that they have changed a little bit, but for all intents and purposes, we are who we are and personnel doesn’t change. Their personnel is really good.

Nijel Pack, Norchad Omier, he’s a moose. I know that he’s a great player. He’s their leading scorer at 18 a game. Matthew Cleveland’s been nicked up. I don’t know what exactly is wrong with him. He’s missed the last three games. Harlond Beverly, number four, really likes Wooga Poplar. They don’t play many people. That Kyshawn George kid banked a three to tie the game with two to play, if you’ll recall, he’s playing pretty well for them. It’s a game to take nothing away from Coach Larrañaga, who’s just outstanding. They do great things offensively, but it’s more of a personnel game than it is what their actions are and how you’re gonna guard that and they’ve been running the same actions since we came into the league five years ago.

How about Nijel Pack last night. 23 points, every one of them in the second half. He played a really nice half.

I was watching it with Davis at the house and I looked at the box score during the halftime before the second half began and Nijel hadn’t scored and I texted Kevin Giltner, who has the scout with coach Ace Custis. And I said, ‘What’s wrong with Pack?’ I knew Cleveland wasn’t playing. Both said he just hadn’t played very well to that point. And then there he goes, guy has an uncanny knack for getting his shot. I mean, stop on a dime, shot fake. Send a ball screen up, he’ll go away from the ball screen stop, step back. He’s a dynamic young man and a great player for the Hurricanes.

In the last game you played Miami, you outrebounded them by 10. How important is that and how do you replicate that?

Big, and Duke clobbered us on the glass Monday night. It’s a big deal. A lot of time you say this about any game: the team that outrebounds the other has a decided advantage, and Duke out rebounded us quite a bit and that hurts. Said it earlier, you want to get great shots every time down. You want to get more shots than your opponent. Well, you can’t turn the ball over. We didn’t. But they outrebounded us by a good margin. They had 10 offensive rebounds. We only had four. Consequently, they’re getting more shots than you are and that long haul takes a toll on you.

You mentioned Matthew Cleveland. He led them last time at 21 points. If he didn’t play, that’s a big factor. He wasn’t there last night and you could tell their lineup is a little bit short.

Yes, it is. They play much more of a four-guard lineup. They played George at the four, or I don’t know, maybe they consider Wooga Poplar the four with that lineup. They’re still potent. They’ve still got a number of guys who could put the ball in the hole.

Pete D’Amour

What’s this team like? What are you expecting this season? I know Hokie fans are excited for this year and this team.

We’ve been at it for about a month now. The kids came back a week before school started. We’ve been fortunate to be outside the past three days. We’re going down to Alabama next week. So I like how we’re competing. We have lofty goals. Every day, we’re trying to get better and attain those goals at the end of the year. So I’m happy with the progress so far.

How important is it when you get those girls back to be able to have the facilities you have to be able to work out like that when it’s so cold outside?

Yeah, it’s unbelievable. We can do everything indoors. We can hit, we can pitch, we can field and do it all at the same time. We do sneak into the Beamer Barn every once in a while, but as you know, it’s cold in there. So we try to stay out of it.

Ten opponents on your schedule made the NCAA Tournament last year. Kind of walk us through the slate and how it came about?

The thing with us is we try to host [NCAA] regionals and we try to host super regionals. So at the end of the year, a lot of it is computer-based. So our schedule is set up for RPI reasons, and a couple years ago, we played some really good teams early and came out of that with a really good record and we’re number one in the country in RPI. So we scheduled that way last year, and we didn’t get as many wins as the year before, but RPI came out, we were top 20, so there’s really no downside to scheduling that way.

And coming up Feb. 9, you’re down in Alabama, and then you’re gonna go to Arizona later on for a nice four-game set there, and then to Athens, Ga. Talk about those trips, how they come about and how you arrange those.

I don’t want to fly anymore. I just don’t want to get on a plane all the time. And we’re going to drive to Alabama, we’re going to drive to Georgia. About seven hours to Alabama and probably five to Georgia. So those are easy trips, good RPI games, and we flew out to Arizona a couple years ago for regionals. And an old pitcher — he’s not old, but Joe Saunders is out there. He’s played baseball here, so we’re gonna go see him, and that’s the thing, it’s good competition. They’re good fields and the weather’s gonna be pretty decent.

A lot of excitement around Emma Lemley coming back after her sophomore year last year. What can we expect out of one of the better pitchers in the country?

She’s got something to prove this year. And she had a really outstanding freshman year. Last year, a lot of different factors. But she would tell you, she didn’t pitch as well as she thought she could. And so I’m looking forward to seeing her this year. Her velocity’s back up. She’s developed a couple of new pitches. I talked to her today. She’s really excited about the new pitch. I don’t want to give out too many secrets. But she’s excited about it. And I told her, you get those pitches down and it’ll change your life. So I’m looking forward to seeing her pitch.

You have about six pitchers on the roster. What’s the line on that? Are there ever too many pitchers you can get? 

We’ll find out. This is my 17th year and it used to be you had an ace and you rolled with them, and now the hitters are just too good. So you have different looks. We have two lefties on the staff this year, which we never had. Some drop-ballers, some rise-ballers and kids with really good changeups. So just to give hitters a different look, I told them, ‘You’re gonna get the ball and you might come out in the fourth inning, you just don’t know. But we have somebody behind you that’s a different look.’ We’re hunting wins. If everybody’s on the same page as far as that goes, you keep people a little more happy that way.

What’s your philosophy with the pitching side? I know it’s so different than baseball in terms of the different looks. How do you make those decisions? What’s your thought on all that?

They’re primarily three pitches to softball: a rise ball, a drop ball and a changeup. Last year, we had two predominantly rise ball pitchers. And so you take one rise ball pitcher out and then we have a drop or two, but you put the other rise ball or if you’re replacing the pitcher with somebody that throws similar to the pitcher you took out. So to be able to start with the rise ball pitchers throwing upper 60s, and then you throw a drop ball from the left side that throws 62, could change up, and then can finish it back up with the rise ball pitcher, but you just can’t have the same look all the time. It’s hard if our pitchers go four times through our hitters. We can hit, and so by your third or fourth at-bat, we can square you up. So I told our pitchers last week, that’s a good lesson because she threw four times to our hitters and we got to her third and fourth. That’s a real game. We’ve got somebody else in with a different look. So I’m excited about that. We’ve really not had that here yet.

There’s a new member of your staff coming all the way from Argentina.

Huemul Mata, he’s a stud. He’s arguably one of the best pitchers in the world. And he’s brilliant. He won the men’s fast pitch championship, the World Championship in 2019. And he just brings a championship feel to our program. He’s been there and he’s won it and so he’s got instant credibility. And the one thing that’s really beneficial for our hitters is he can throw about 80 percent and he was the thrower for the intra-squad yesterday. And he’s probably throwing 70 percent, no spikes on and he’s throwing 65 with spin that our hitters are not going to see.

Coach Mike Lewis has his spikes on, he’s pitching. He’s not the level of Huemul. I told our hitters, ‘You’re lucky you get to see this because you’re facing pitchers in practice that are better than any pitcher you’re gonna see all year, and you might fail but it’s gonna make you better,’ and those two guys are invaluable to us.

You gotta be excited about Bre Peck coming back after what she produced last year. Her 16 home runs, which ranked fourth in the ACC. What do you see out of your hitters, specifically Bre?

Bre is swinging the bat right now arguably the best she ever has here. And I’m excited. She almost flies under the radar all the time and the kid is halfway to our home run record and she doesn’t really get talked about a lot. But if you see her on the field with her spikes on, man, that kid can play and she’s a five-tool player, but she’s got a lot of help this year too. We bring some offensive weapons that had good years last year and we added a few more pieces. So our lineup will be pretty tough.

Was it a point of emphasis to try to swing hard and have more home run swings? You guys had 100 home runs, which led the ACC and was second in the nation last year.

Yeah, in a way. Our first year, we hit 97 in 2019, and we could really hit, and as a coach, you’re always trying to look for the next best thing and how do you improve your hitters and kind of got away from that a little bit and went back to just swinging the bat hard. And bat speed is so important in our sport that if you can hit the ball hard, it’s hard to field it. I think when you have exceptional bat speed, the home runs are a byproduct of that. And so swinging the bat hard, trying to get in the air and we can hit balls. We have a device in our facility that shows us how far balls can be hit. And one kid hit one 320 last week. 320 feet, our fences are 220. So then your miss hits are home runs now so we’ve really just hammered home bat speed, being a good athlete, rotate fast. All those kinds of things.

That might get to the Frank Beamer statue over there across the road.

That’s the thing. With our field, we can’t take a lot of batting practice there because we destroy windshields. I think our last BP in the fall, we always challenge our hitters, how many can we hit in an hour? And I said there’s no way you’re gonna hit 115, and we hit 131 in an hour. And that’s when the women’s basketball game was getting done and people were dodging balls. I told Jayme Bailey, our GA, to hand out helmets, didn’t want to kill anybody.

Have you ever had anybody walk up to practice like hey my car just got hit?

All the time. Funny story. We have a freshman right now that came to camp about three years ago and it was after the football season. So they were cleaning out the porta potties, just taking them out and the porta potty truck drove by and she hit one through the windshield. And here’s your scholarship. 

What’s the ACC look like this year? 

Reloaded, keeps you up at night. The top four, five, six teams in the league can play against anybody in the country. And I think we had three teams hosting or going to Super Regionals last year and we weren’t one of them, but we’re hoping to get there again.

It’s always fun to play Liberty home and away isn’t it?

Yeah, Liberty, they’re a top-30 team in the country. So it’s good for RPI. Their stadium is unbelievable, I know the coaches. I respect them and they’re fun to play against.

I know last year you guys brought in extra bleachers for a lot of home games and that was something big. Is that happening again this year?

That will be as far as I know. We brought them in for regionals and supers a couple years ago and they were packed and so when those stands are packed, our kids really feed off it and we’re looking forward to it again, having them back out there.

Talk about Jayme Bailey. She was an infielder for you, now she’s a graduate assistant.

Jayme’s awesome, she’s my OG. She started here my first year and just kept getting better and better and a tough, hard-nosed player and our kids respect her. She’s been through it. Been through our program knows what to expect and she might coach first for us here to help with the infield. So we’re thankful she’s around still.

You’re entering your sixth season here at Virginia Tech and since you’ve taken over, it’s been instant success and continued success. What went into your decision to come to Tech?

I was at Kennesaw State for a couple years and made two postseason appearances. And I was happy there and we played Auburn of all teams in regionals and we were just a step slow, and I said, ‘We maxed out this current team.’ And it’s funny because I was getting really high-level recruits there and I always told kids, if they asked how long I would be here, I said, ‘Well, I’ll go to Georgia, because my wife’s from there. And I’ll go to Virginia Tech because it was the closest place to where I grew up.’ I’d never been here and they called me a couple days later and here I am. But yeah, just I came up here and just seeing the facilities and the talent in Virginia is really good. And so I had a good idea we could do something special here.

You got a lot of veterans back, but also nine freshmen, three transfers. Has anybody stood out that maybe was a little bit of a surprise?

Two transfers, one of which is Cori McMillan, came from Radford. In her freshman year, she was a top-25 player in the country, top-25 freshman. I’ve said it before, she’s a five-tool kid. She has the most bat speed on our team. She’s the one who hit one 320. Versatile. She can play anywhere. Cassie Grizzard is a left handed pitcher from Midlothian and she transferred from Louisville. She’s been really impressive. She throws mid 60s. Really excellent changeup. And to be left-handed like that is a plus, to throw mid 60s is a plus and to have a changeup is an equalizer. Those two transfers stick out right away. And we have a really talented freshman class. I’m hesitant to say anything about them because they haven’t played a game yet, but they look good in practice and the thing with them is they picked up culture wise as fast as any freshman I’ve had. So everybody’s gelling together and I’m looking for big things out of those freshmen.

How prevalent is the transfer portal in softball? How much do you guys look into that?

It’s really needs-based for us. Just how I’m built. I like to see our players that we recruit get better and stay here. Obviously, there’s some instant fixes, so to speak. I didn’t think we had fixes that to be had this year. Those kids were mostly bonuses, but it’s a big deal. As far as the elephant in the room and NIL, there’s a lot of teams that have a lot of cash to spend around, spend for pitching especially, so to get an upper-tier pitcher costs a lot of money now and so let’s develop our kids. And if we have the opportunity to get those kids, we pick them up.