Tech Talk Live Notes: Mike Young And Fontel Mines

On Thursday night, Virginia Tech men’s basketball coach Mike Young and Tech football wide receiver coach Fontel Mines joined Zach Mackey and Mike Burnop on Tech Talk Live.

The Hokies are back on the hardwood in Cassell Coliseum on Saturday for senior day vs. Notre Dame (2:30 p.m. ET, ESPNU) and have won their last two games. Spring football practice for Mines & Co. begins on March 16.

Mike Young

Two good wins for the Hokies. How do you think the week went?

Good all the way around. Probably had our best practice of the year today, just in terms of attention to detail and enthusiasm. It’s been a good practice team, today was exceptional. I thought Wake Forest made a bunch of shots and got us back on our heels, we were down 15 in the first half, down nine at the half. Come roaring back. I guess it was 6-0 to start the half. And, man we played really good basketball, and then again on Tuesday up there in Louisville. Do they have good looking people or what? [Brandon] Huntley-Hatfield, Tre White, Skyy Clark. And I thought we played very very well in that grand arena, the Yum! Center, and to come away with two, let’s continue to play well on Saturday against the Fighting Irish and head into D.C. with a little momentum and see what happens.

What goes through your mind when you’re sitting there watching Wake Forest just throwing up one after another after another? It started 9-of-10 from 3-point range.

Six different Demon Deacons made 3-point shots. They’re going in from all angles. And you call timeout to stem the tide, well that worked out really well for me they went on a 4-0,6-0 run after that. It was great coaching, I tell you what surprises me sometimes to how brilliant I am. You’re just trying to get it into single digits to give yourself a fighting chance. And we flipped it. Thank goodness. They hit pretty good shots in the second half. They didn’t make them, we did guard better. We kept them out of transition, Cam Hildreth is such a good player for Wake Forest. There are a lot of things going through your head. You know one of which is can I catch a break here and get a couple of shots contested, rebound the darn ball and get something home ourselves and we finally did that in the second.

A monster second half for Virginia Tech, outscored Wake Forest 50 to 30. 26 points came from Hunter Cattoor, he was a big part of that second half.

He was awesome. He has such a great feel for the game and his ability to read screens and Mylyjael [Poteat] and Lynn [Kidd] and Robbie Beran did a really nice job in getting their body on to the person that was guarding Hunter. I thought Sean Pedulla had another really good game. He was really good against Louisville. Robbie Beran’s been playing really good basketball. MJ Collins, probably his best stretch to this point in the season. Mylyjael Poteat continues to do it night in and night out. I was happy, I’m bouncing all over the place. I was happy that we had the opportunity to get Brandon Rechsteiner some minutes on Tuesday at Louisville, Jaydon Young, and both those kids came in and helped us. Out of necessity, I played Patrick Wessler a little bit in the first half, Lynn and Mylyjael both had two fouls, that can’t happen against Huntley-Hatfield. I thought Patrick did a nice job for us. He grabbed two rebounds and he missed two shots. He never misses. But he helped us. So those are great opportunities. Would like to play the same way on Saturday against Notre Dame if I have the opportunity.

Not only did Hunter Cattoor score, he did a great job against Wake. We talked after the game about the job he did on Hunter Sallis. I mean, he had five points at the half and just 11 for the game, that guy would have been on an absolute tear.

I think that Hunter Sallis, behind RJ Davis, is the player of the year in our league. I think Hunter would be the second in voting. It’ll be interesting to see how that comes out. Maybe PJ Hall, maybe Armando Bacot. Hunter Sallis is a load. He is a great player, a dynamic scorer. He hit a three on us in transition after a turnover, … but Hunter did an exceptional job on him. Chase him off stuff and make it really hard for him, challenging everything that Sallis tried to do. So a heck of an effort all the way around, 26 points, and to do that kind of work on a great scorer is a heck of a night’s work for Hunter Cattoor.

It hasn’t all meshed together for Coach Kenny Payne this season with all that talent. How difficult can that be at times when you have these guys that excel and try to get it all together all in one place?

Well, there’s nothing easy about it. I don’t care what sport you’re playing. You’ve got to get kids to play together, you’ve got to get kids to buy into different roles, not everybody can be Mick Jagger. You gotta have guys that rebound, guys that defend well. And the bottom line, if you can’t get a group of people with a common goal of winning, just win the game, and it is really hard, you’ve got problems. I’m not trying to dissect Coach Payne and what’s going on at Louisville. I love Kenny Payne. Kenny Payne is a very good friend of mine. I have just such great admiration for him. I hate to see what’s happening there with the media and so on. But that’s a heck of a job and they’re struggling a little bit right now. But those are just some thoughts from me.

You talk about a kid that’s a handful to guard, how about Ty-Laur Johnson. He’s only like six-foot, 160 pounds. But that dude was quick as a cat. 

He’s quick. Our team guarded them exactly the way we asked them to guard him. Louisville is not a great shooting team. But man, do they get fouled. And my concern was we’d be dealing with foul issues all night, they would go to the foul line 30 times and that’s how they make it hard for us. But boy, we did a really good job of sticking in those gaps and making those driving lines hard. Now consequently, when they drive it, you’re in that gap to keep them out of the lane. And they’re pitching the thing around and Kenny’s son, Zan [Payne], made two threes, he had scored in six games. We thought we’re gonna run the risk of doing that, they’re not a great shooting team. Ty-Laur Johnson is not a great shooter. He made a three, but we guarded it the way we wanted to guard it. They only got to the foul line 11 times, we made more foul shots than they took. That’s a significant statistic. And got out of there with a road win, which is big.

At times, Robbie’s moved down to the five, you had Tyler Nickel playing the four. What was the thought going into that?

Well, we were battling injuries with Lynn and Mylyjael. Those are situations you talk about in the lead up to the game. And it is so predicated on who can guard who and who can’t guard who. The only opportunity we had to do that was when Huntley-Hatfield was out of the game. So when Huntley-Hatfield goes out of the game, they’re gonna play Emmanuel Okorafor or Kaleb Glenn at the five and we can guard those two men with Robbie. Tyler’s fine at the four with whomever they’re playing at the four. But yeah, I don’t want to play, will not play very much or often without Lynn or Mylyjael for a number of reasons. But playing that lineup does give you another mover, it does give you another floor stretcher and really good ball handling and that lineup worked out well for us. I thought those guys did a good job.

Tell us about Senior Day coming up. How do you wrap your hands and arms around the fact that Hunter Cattoor is going to play in Cassell Coliseum for the final time and those days are limited?

I talked about it in practice today, before practice. I said, ‘You’ve ever counted the number of practices we’ve been involved in together?’ And he was doing some kind of stretch and came back over. He said, ‘We are closing in on 650 or 700 over a five-year period.’ It’s just so different now with the transfer portal. We’ll recognize Mekhi Long, Robbie, who have just been with us obviously for a year, we will recognize Mylyjael with the understanding that he has another year of eligibility that remains to be seen. Those conversations take place at the end of the year. But it used to be this big, I don’t want to say formal exercise, but you got three people that have been with you for four years and Hunter’s used his COVID year to come back for a fifth year. It’s just different. But those guys deserve our recognition and I’m sure the Cassell will be rolling. It’ll be a lot of fun and certainly an opportunity to thank those guys and, consider the career that Hunter Cattoor had and what he’s done for Virginia Tech, me, Blacksburg, Southwest Virginia. He loves this school. He loves competing in Cassell Coliseum in front of Hokie fans and to do it one more time, I know it will be thrilling for him. We’re all looking forward to it and competing against the Fighting Irish. What could be better?

Robbie Beran is going to be one of those seniors honored. He seems to be peaking at the right time, made a boatload of threes on Tuesday, but he’s played the last couple of weeks well.

Great, defending really well, took a charge the other night. He’s guarding his spot, rebounding a little bit better. Playing very good basketball, practiced really well today. Happy for him. He’s worked at it. He’s serious about it. And what a wonderful young person.

When you mentioned Lynn Kidd, has there ever been a guy that has been as productive as he has? And you never hear anything about it around the league? Why does nobody talk about Lynn Kidd?

I think it’s an interesting topic in question. I don’t know the answer, he’s had a heck of a year. His athleticism around the rim without contact in space is quite a sight to behold. He’s got really good hands. He’s got a very good handle and knowledge of what we’re trying to get to offensively. He can score over either shoulder and he’s had nothing short of spectacular campaign and I’m disappointed in the lack of noise surrounding his play throughout the season. He is deserving of any recognition that he gets, he’s had a good year.

You’ve had a lot of success in tournament style formats, whether it be at Wofford or obviously at Virginia Tech winning an ACC title. What’s your mindset? What are you telling the players in tournament-type styles?

I’ve had a lot of coaches, a lot of friends that call me and ask, had one this week, has been a head coach for five years, has not won a tournament game and he’s had three really good regular seasons. Now, ‘What am I doing wrong? What do you recommend?’ It’s nothing extra. I said, ‘Don’t put any additional pressure on them. They know what’s at stake in those mid-major leagues, which I was a part of for a long time, for 17 years of my career.’ You talk about some heat now. I mean, you go into that thing, number one seed and you lose, you’re out. It’s over, you’re not going to the postseason, close the windows, it’s over. But we just treat it the same, like another game, they understand what’s at stake, I understand what’s at stake. Let’s go play our best basketball, lay your ears back and let it rip. Have a good time with it. And that’s just how we’ve handled it.

Do you have any idea what your roster is going to look like next year with the transfer portal and NIL?

I have no clue. I haven’t given it any thought. There’s a season for everything. This season, I’m gonna pour every ounce that I have into this team and go as far as we can, go for as long as we can go. And then the calendar flips and you turn your attention to the next roster. It is an interesting time. But the way things are set now, that’s just a part of life. And you figure it out. We’ve been very fortunate in that regard since those rule changes. I hope to have a number of them back. But again, that remains to be seen.

It’s going to be an afternoon game against Notre Dame on Saturday. Walk us through what those next couple of days are gonna be like for your team getting ready for either a game on Tuesday or Wednesday at the ACC Tournament?

We talked about it a little bit today. You’re kind of looking at a moving target right now and I said, ‘Here’s what we’re doing. All right, we’re gonna get through Saturday. And only then will we know exactly what we’re looking at, who our first-round opponent is going to be, who our second-round opponent is going to be if we’re fortunate enough to win.’ High school facility, when do we get on the arena floor? We’ll have 45 minutes the day before our first game. We hope that’s Tuesday. You have 45 minutes to get on the floor and shoot. I just don’t know exactly what all that’s going to look like yet. Hope it’s Wednesday. If it’s Wednesday, we’ll come in. I’ll bring my team over. On Sunday, we will know our opponent, we can get a good head start. We’ll have a travel day on Monday. We all have to be in D.C. on Monday, per league rules, so we’ll get up there and get settled and continue our preparation for whomever that might be. But that schedule is very much up in the air until we get some more clarity on it Saturday evening.

Have you played in that arena before?

Have not. We played at the Naval Academy and I took our team over to D.C. and we toured the White House and the US Capitol. And Tommy Sheppard at that time was the general manager of the Washington Wizards and we went over to their practice facility, which is inside that building, and practiced over there. Went into the arena and walked around. It’s exactly what you think. But fellas, we were just at the Yum! Center, there’s not an NBA arena in the world nicer than that one. We played in a lot of really nice places, big places. I have no concerns about going into D.C. and I don’t even know the name of the arena right now, but no concerns about going in there and playing really well and shooting the basketball well.

As you watch this Notre Dame team the last couple of weeks, what have you seen out of them?

They’ve won five of their last seven. They got touched up at North Carolina this past Saturday. A lot of us have gotten touched up in Chapel Hill this season. Markus Burton is playing great basketball, man, he’s really good. Their head coach, Micah Shrewsberry, is a very dear friend of mine. His son, Braeden, is playing very well, he can really shoot the basketball, made a couple of threes up there in South Bend that hurt us. They’ve got a good outfit. Young. He’ll have three or four freshmen on the floor at any one time, but they’re not freshmen anymore. They play a lot of basketball and are comfortable with one another. They’re quite good defensively, which is surprising for a young team. We will have to play a good ballgame, I know that.

You mentioned Markus Burton, he was six out of 18, took a lot of shots. Nobody else had more than seven shots, but he had 16 points, eight assists and six steals. That guy’s a handful isn’t he?

There’s not a selfish bone in his body, he has to score for them. He has to ring the bell for them to succeed. He doesn’t shoot the ball great, but he’s capable. You’ve got to guard him. But Coach Shrewsberry does a really nice job in getting him into space and room to drive the ball and gosh, is he fast. Really quick, really fast and got all the tricks in the paint, a little tiny guy, all tricks in the paint. Jump stop, turn around jump shot, finish at the rim and get fouled. He’s a good one. He’s gonna be a good player in this league for a long time.

Fontel Mines

How did the old Hunger Games go?

It was good. This is a unique opportunity to get a chance to see those freshmen go through some adversity and grow and find a team to grow together and to compete, as well as coaches get active, and we get the chance to lose a little bit of weight, run around, sweat a good bit. So it was really good. We got a chance to start some of the installs, the guys get a chance to start coaching a little bit. So I thought it was really good for us, good Phase 1. And then we’re gonna kind of slide into Phase 2 next week.

Talk us through what spring is going to look like. How many practices you guys have? Obviously, it’s going to culminate with that spring game. But what does spring look like for the guys?

For us, we practice on Tuesday, Thursdays and Saturday mornings. They’re all morning practices. Monday, Wednesday and Friday are usually reserved for our meeting time with the guys. 15 total practices. That includes the spring game on April 13th. So it’s a really unique opportunity for us to practice without a game. Usually you’re in season and you’re practicing and the lead up is Saturday when you play. So right now, it’s just kind of head down and in grind mode for us to kind of gel as an offense and gel as a defense. And for our team as well, to get an opportunity to work on special teams, we get a chance to see what some of these early enrollees can do, some of the transfers, and just for everybody to get a chance to mesh. 

When you look back to last year, thinking back, Brent Pry was trying to hire an offensive line coach and a running back coach, and they literally got here what like a week before practice. How challenging was that and how nice is it now to have so much stability there?

I mean, that is the name of the game. We’ve got everybody back on offense, we’ve got all those guys back on defense, the entire coaching staff. So it speaks credits to Coach Pry and the culture that he’s building in the locker room and offices. Guys want to come play for him, guys want to come work for him. So there was no doubt in my mind that he would hire like-minded guys, that would mesh with the entire staff. And it’s been a seamless transition for us.

The staff is all coming back, that’s great. All the players basically on the offensive side are coming back. Were you surprised whenever you had those meetings and the number of guys coming back?

Not really, to be honest with you. Those were like continuous meetings throughout the season. A lot of people just think, all right, at the end of the season, let’s have this one big meeting and see if these guys are coming back. That stuff, that’s relationships, that’s trust, that’s vision, those guys are all brought into what we want to do as a team, but also what we want to do as an offense and they felt like they left some things out there and guys come back for some of their personal reasons. They want to have some growth individually. And that usually leads to team success. So it wasn’t surprising to me. Those guys are not as selfish as most receivers are. They’re very team-oriented. They’re very team driven. They care about each other, they love each other. And I think that the last half of the season really kind of spearheaded us into the offseason of we can do some special things here. Let’s all come back and make this thing special.

Give us the update on Ali Jennings. He goes down in the second game blocking downfield. How’s it been having him back as a leader and developing his game a little more?

It’s been great. Crazy enough, this will be Ali’s first full spring practice. And you want to talk about a guy who’s been in college for a long time, this will be his first full spring of being healthy and being around, it’s been tremendous for us. For him as well, just really getting that offseason and Phase 1, just workouts, morning workouts, just lifting, running, working on his craft, and now he gets an opportunity to really fine tune himself. My message to him is you still have a lot left to prove. And I think that’s the mindset he has. So he’s hungry. He’s determined. He’s ready to work.

Ali Jennings was somebody who had so much hype coming into this season. And then after game one, I mean, the great game that he had, everyone wanted to interview him, he was everywhere. And then to have that injury happen, how did he handle that? And how do you handle that as a coach?

It’s tough, man. I’ve had a really deep relationship with him and his family for a long time. And he’s probably one of the most mature kids I’ve been around at this level. He leaned on his family, he leaned on us. That’s a hard thing. In his mind he was coming in, he was gonna play one year, he’s gonna prove himself. He was like, ‘I have an opportunity to go play at the next level.’ But I think it just gives you an opportunity to reevaluate yourself, reevaluate the situation that you’re in. And he went through a small phase where he was just kind of fighting to stay above water a little bit. And I think once he came out of that, he has just been head down, he’s been working, he’s been motivated, he’s been encouraging. He’s been that senior leader that we’ve been needing for a little while.

You’re also the offensive recruiting coordinator. What kind of bump did you get when you start going to these families and homes and all that sort of stuff after that bowl game and the win over UVa?

I think it was really gratifying. We got a chance to extend our season when we won our sixth game and we got a chance to beat our rival pretty handily. And I think those guys, just the confidence level, the energy, the support. I got a chance to hold the Commonwealth Cup. I didn’t get a chance to do that a bunch as a player, so that was good. It was a really good feeling. The holidays were really great. And that made practice for a bowl game just even that much sweeter.

What are some of the areas and some of the ways that you go about trying to sell Virginia Tech and trying to get recruits to come here and be a Hokie?

Well, first thing is it’s not just me, it’s a group effort. And I want to say that I think the entire staff does a really good job of just the communication plan of rallying behind each other. I’m not gonna give you all my secrets. But seriously, it’s relationship-based. I thrive on relationships, just as far as coaching, as far as recruiting. So you have to do a really good job of just entrenching yourself in that world, you have to identify who’s making the decision, the decision-maker earlier in the relationship, whether it’s Mom, whether it’s dad or big brother. This is usually the first big decision that those guys are going to make. And typically, they make it on their own, but they’re gonna have guidance from outside sources, family, close friends. A person that they lean on a ton is their high school coach, and I think they’re slowly starting to get away from being in that process. But for me, I think that’s really important because they spend the most time with those guys on a daily basis. I mean, everybody’s moving towards 7-on-7 and all the summer activities that these guys are doing.

You sit back and think just from ninth grade until their senior year, they spent a bunch of time with their high school coach, and he’s gonna have a really good feel for him on a day-to-day, just maybe what they struggle with, their character, they may see him in school more. When we go visit these guys in school, I do a really good job of speaking to the people that I see in the hallway, asking, ‘How is such and such? Tell me, what’s the first thing that comes to your mind? When you think about it? What type of kid is he? How is he in a group setting?’ And I think for me, how do they handle adversity? Just really entrenching yourself in their life and just finding as much information as you can about them. But the biggest thing is just being honest, being genuine, being yourself, being transparent. I think that goes a long way. Even if they don’t want to hear it early in the process. I think if you’re upfront with them early in the process, and you’re transparent about your expectations, and where are you seeing them, maybe on the board, maybe they’re high, maybe they’re low. I think they’ll respect you a lot more in the end.

Talk to us about Kyron Drones, the year that he had, how he grew from start to finish, and how he’s been a leader in the offseason.

He’s a really neat kid. You want to talk about a guy who just embraced the moment. He was probably disappointed when he didn’t take the first snap of the Old Dominion game, but a guy who just came to work every day who was prepared, he prepared himself every day like a starter, he didn’t lose his confidence. one bit. But I think right now he has leadership qualities that the guys are really willing to follow. He’s big, he’s strong, he’s athletic. I mean, he has all those attributes that you love. But at the end of the day, he’s a great person. He’s a good kid. He shows up on time, he stays late. He demands a lot from the offense, he demands a lot from the skill position. And I think his work ethic is through the roof. We spoke about hunger drills earlier, I don’t know if there’s anybody on the team that beat him the entire month that we did hunger drills. The dude works more than anybody, and I’ve been around a long time.

I believe your room in the wide receiver room has dubbed themselves the bad boys, right? Where does that come from?

It’s just confidence, it’s swag. It’s just who we are. How we identify ourselves as you know how we’re gonna approach the game. We’re just gonna be kind of just balls to the wall and we’re gonna be flying around and we’re gonna make plays, we’re gonna be blocking safeties, we’re gonna be blocking defensive ends. It’s just the mentality and the attitude that the room has, and they’ve all kind of really just bought in. I think Coach Pry has done a really good job of upping the competition level and upping the mentality of the guys. And I think that’s really translated to some wins down the road. Because when you’re dealing with some adversity, right? You’ve got to find a way to kind of get out of that slump. And those guys fall back to competition, they fall back to mentality.

Who’s a guy or two that Hokie fans should look out for and has been maybe a little bit of a surprise to you?

I love what I’m seeing right now from Ayden Greene. He had an opportunity last year to get his feet wet as a true freshman. I think he played about 20 to 30 snaps a game. You want to talk about a guy who’s confident in himself and his abilities, who doesn’t back down from anything. He’s had a really good offseason thus far. He has an opportunity to just continue to grow as a receiver and really learned the game. 200-level is what we call it. I think he did a really good job last year mastering the 100-level things. Now we want to take that a notch up, we want him to master 200-level things that we want to do offensively. So I’m really loving what I’m getting from him.

I think Takye Heath is going to have an opportunity to play in the slot. He had an unfortunate injury last year, he was all set to play the first play of his college career and ended up having a small setback but in the big scheme of things, obviously it all happens for a reason. He got a chance to be squared away on his academics, he got a chance to really sit back and learn the offense, he got a chance to learn how to be a college athlete. I’m really excited about those two amongst a whole group. Excited about those two freshmen, Keylen “Brodie” Adams and Chanz Wiggins. They’re gonna have an opportunity to play. We’re gonna play the best guy, whether that’s walk on or whether that’s a freshmen or they’re senior, but I can promise you those top-three guys don’t want to give up those reps.