Virginia Tech men’s basketball coach Mike Young and center Patrick Wessler joined Tech Talk Live on Wednesday night ahead of the Hokies’ game vs. North Carolina A&T on Thursday (7 p.m. ET, ACCNX). They also recapped the team’s 64-59 loss to No. 18 Pitt from Saturday.
Mike Young
How’s practice been these last couple of days?
Good, good. To their credit, they lose a heartbreaker to Pitt. We were up five with two to play in the home league opener against a really, really good Pittsburgh team in the top 25 and legitimately so, they’re that good. Not winning was disappointing. We gave them Sunday off out of necessity, we’ve got finals this week, obviously. They’ve got a lot going on. Practices have been very good. A lot of our stuff on Monday and a lot of attention to detail with A&T these last couple of days. They’ve handled themselves quite well, and I’m proud of them.
Everything was going well there in the first half of Saturday’s game vs. No. 18 Pitt. Forced five turnovers, got Tobi Lawal going and shot 52 percent.
I thought everything was going well. We had a great start defensively. [Jaland] Lowe is such a dynamic player for them, it’s no secret. My wife, bless her, she doesn’t know anything at all about it, but she could have told you that when the going gets tough, they’re going to give the ball to Lowe. That’s exactly what happened. There wasn’t anything that surprised us. We’d done a really good job on Lowe and [Ishmael] Leggett. Leggett is a really good player across the board. They got away from us a couple of times, we got caught in a bad coverage and gave up a couple of threes. I thought the first half played out about as well as I could have hoped. [Ben] Burnham knocked one down here outside of the NBA arc to put us up eight at the half. We were in great shape. Our teams win that game and we didn’t on Saturday.
How about Tobi Lawal getting going? He had just one shot against Vanderbilt. Was Pitt doing anything differently that allowed him to get more shots up?
No, we didn’t change anything. No special emphasis on getting the ball to Tobi. It just happened out of our offense. I think Tyler Johnson is really coming into his own. He’s getting more comfortable, playing faster and looser. He’s nine, 10 games into this thing now. That tends to happen for young people the more plays they see. More directly to your point, Tobi was very very good. I thought Jaden Schutt had another really good night for our team, good play from him.
Mylyjael Poteat wasn’t up to snuff and Patrick Wessler got into a little bit of foul trouble. You were forced to go small there for a little while.
I want to play that way a little bit more. We move better and do a lot of things better with that lineup. It’s a bit of a catch-22. I can play Johnson at the four, but when you have Burnham and Lawal on the floor at the same time, you leave yourself open to some things. There will be some nights that we can’t play that way because of the matchup with Tobi. Whenever the opportunity presents itself, we’ll go in that direction more and more.
Jaden Schutt had 14 points and knocked down four 3-pointers, and he didn’t turn the ball over. Is that just a thing about how one of the older guys handles the ball?
Really good players take care of the ball. We’ve had a bunch of them. Really good players play with sureness, they play fundamentally sound basketball, they pass the ball with two hands. All of the little things that people talk about when they’re in camp is young people follow what we ask them to do quite well.
He had that nice dunk right before the half. Has he become one of your go-to guys like you’ve had in the past?
We need for him to be, I think he’s got the best opportunity. I think, and correct me if I’m wrong, but he’s made about eight or nine threes in the past two games against Vanderbilt and Pittsburgh. I know we’re loading him up in terms of what we’re running at him. He’s doing a really nice job for us.
You praised your transition defense this game compared to where it had been earlier in the season. What did you see out of that specific element of your game?
They weren’t making threes in transition. Going back and watching film, there was a better level of communication and a better level of urgency. We talk about playing with your hair on fire. Now, if your hair's on fire, something tells me that you’re going to be running like a madman to the other end and finding a suitable matchup. When you’re playing against the likes of Leggett and Lowe and [Zach] Austin, No. 55, he can really shoot the ball. [Guillermo] Diaz [Graham], No. 25, he can really shoot the ball. You’ve got to play with great urgency, you’ve got to play with your hair on fire and you’ve got to play great defense. We’ve had a couple of segments in our practices specifically tailored to work on our transition defense. Getting better on Saturday is definitely a step in the right direction. The downside is that, as good as Pittsburgh is, that is not a big part of what they do offensively. They won’t just blow it at you, especially after making a shot. Now, after they make one and they get a long rebound, especially if it’s Lowe, they’re coming at you. All in all, on a scale of 1-10, North Carolina A&T being a 10 tomorrow night, Pittsburgh is a five. Tomorrow night presents some new challenges.
You talked about wanting to get into your offense quicker, especially late in that second half.
Got to get it moving and got to play through fatigue, good teams do that. Get deployed, get the ball out of the point guard’s hands and get into that action and into an area on the floor where you can get to work. Certainly didn’t do good enough of a job at that as we needed to in the second half. That’s winning time, you can’t have lapses and tired plays like we had down the stretch.
Has that become a mental aspect? How do you coach that when the doubt starts creeping in?
I’m not hitting the panic button yet. We try to build on a lot of positive momentum, albeit a loss. You’ve got to make a play. You’ve got to continue to guard, we did that and got enough stops to win the game until Lowe took over there late. We had our difficulties scoring, we looked at that a lot and harped on it. Got to be in better spots. Got to get the ball out of your hands. They understand and they’ll do it when faced by that situation again.
They entered the game shooting 38 percent from beyond the arc and you held them to just 21 percent. Was that something you were doing defensively or were their shots just not falling?
I’d like to pat that team on the back. We were there on the catch with Leggett and Austin. Blew a coverage or two in the first half, but I thought our attention to detail in that regard did very well. They did miss some shots that they’d typically knock down. We caught some breaks. I can’t credit our team with all of that. But to their credit, much, much better job. Pittsburgh can really spread you out and make you look foolish.
Talk about the recruitment process for Pat Wessler and how his development has come along here.
He’s done well. He’s a great person, he’s worked very hard. We redshirted him his first year, he wasn’t going to play. I’ve done that a lot in my career. If a kid’s not going to play, I don’t want to waste one of his years. Those four years are everything to a young person, and to burn one while knowing that he’s not going to play. He worked very hard on his game in that sit-out year. He improved and got better, his core strength got better. He made great strides last year. I don’t think he was ready to help us win games with Mylyjael and Lynn Kidd firmly ahead of him in the rotation. He’s had some really good moments for our team. He’s scoring around the rim. He missed a couple against Vanderbilt and Pittsburgh right at the cup. You’ve got to get those home. I’m pleased with the progress he’s made.
He attended a top-20 basketball high school in the country at the time he was there. Do these kids attending these big schools and playing in big games factor into recruiting?
He played against really good players. I think kids in this area, kids in Charlotte, kids in Spartansburg… They do a nice job at Combine, his dad is the AD there, might run the school now. It’s a good place. They travel around a little bit. Certainly see positives in the experiences for those kids who have chosen to do that.
What have you thought of Rodney Brown?
He’s getting closer. We need him to get tougher. He’s a good and smart basketball player. We need him to be a better screener, all of the things that require toughness in basketball. Guarding your yard defensively, screening better, making physical plays off of two feet, making a basketball play on the offensive end through contact. He wants to play, they all do. They play when they give me a good opportunity to win. When he does that, he’ll play.
What stands out about this North Carolina A&T team?
They got a good team, they’re better than you want them to be. [Ryan Forrest] and [Landon Glasper] are some good players. One’s averaging 19 a game, the other 17. [Glasper] does not see a shot he doesn’t like. He can score. He’ll take a couple of crazy shots, but he might make one of them. You better mark him. You asked about transition defense, you better have him marked. If not, he’ll kill you. He does a nice job at finding his spots in transition. They do a good job of getting the ball up the floor. I can’t tell you how many times in the last three days that I’ve seen a made basket and this team now on defense is moving quickly up the floor and gives up a transition basket. They play fast, I think they’re top 15 in the country in terms of pace of play. [Camian Shell], the point guard, is good. Doesn’t turn the ball over, he’s tough. They’ve got an undersized four, [Jahnathan Lamothe], a Maryland transfer that’s giving them a lift. Their best post player, [Will Felton], is hurt.
