Virginia Tech men’s basketball forward Tobi Lawal and head coach Mike Young joined Tech Talk Live on Thursday ahead of the Hokies’ trip to Philadelphia, Pa., on Saturday to face Saint Joseph’s. That’s a noon ET tip at the historic Palestra on CBS Sports Network.
Tobi Lawal
Has everything been smooth for you? The transition to being a Virginia Tech Hokie?
Yeah, 100%. Everyone is very welcoming. ‘This is Home’ is the” trademark,” for me, it really is. Everybody welcomes you and makes you feel comfortable. That really made the transition easy for me.
What made you decide to come here to Virginia Tech?
I already had a relationship with Coach J.D. [Byers], that’s my guy. I already knew I was going to develop with J.D. no matter where he is. My faith is a big part of who I am, I knew that I’d be able to grow my faith as well. The unknown was the rest of the coaching staff, I didn’t know them. Once I learned that they were great people, it really made the decision easy.
Tell us about what life was like growing up in the U.K.
It’s really different from here. Everything is so much more compact than it is in the United States. Everybody has a car here. I used to walk from one end of London to the other, that was probably an hour tops. The sports are different. I don’t want to say we don’t care about basketball, but it’s definitely not a main focus. We don’t have a ton of access to courts unless you’re playing outside, and the weather was not really great. London is a great place, especially central London. I’d compare it to New York, but it’s probably not as big as New York.
How often do you go back over there?
Not very often. I went back in the summer because I didn’t have much of a choice. I was going to play for the national team. But usually about once every year.
You have four brothers and one sister, tell us about your family.
One of my brothers is on my mom’s side, the rest are on my dad’s. I’m mostly only close with one of my brothers and my sister on my dad’s side. The rest of them, I’m not really close with.
Are they athletes?
Nobody in my family is an athlete.
So you got all the jumps?
Yeah, nobody else is really that tall. My dad is 6-1. I just got lucky.
Soccer is a big part of the culture in the U.K. You played it growing up. I have to imagine you were one of the tallest running around out there.
Not really. When I played soccer, I was younger. When I was 14, I grew from about 5-9 to 6-1. I was still playing soccer at the time, but it honestly just started getting boring for me. Not everybody is involved at one time. There are so many people on the field, you’re going to be just chilling at some point. I like the action.
Your vertical jump is 49 ½ inches. When did you realize that you had something there?
Apparently, I still don’t realize it now. It took a while. When I started playing basketball, I was already 16. I decided once to just jump and dunk it, and people looked at me like I was crazy. It wasn’t anything crazy to me. I knew I was fast, but I didn’t really realize that until then.
Do you feel like you’re still learning about the game as you’re going on?
Yeah, 100%. Sometimes when I make mistakes, it’s just because I’m trying to think and process what’s going on. The game doesn’t click to me as quickly because I’m still so new. At the same time, I learn stuff really quickly. I might take a while to process it, but my body is usually quick enough to adjust. I’m definitely still learning, 100%.
How did you get to VCU from London in the first place?
I hadn’t been playing basketball long, so back when I was in England, I wasn’t even playing that much. England is different. We have secondary school up until you’re 16. Your last two years, we call that college. Then you go to university. When I was 16, I went to a college where they played basketball. That’s where I really started playing and taking basketball seriously. After my first year there, I could have gone to a prep school. I didn’t go because I didn’t know how serious I was about basketball. After my second year, I went. In prep school, when J.D. came to see me, half the gym was dark because the light was broken. The backboard was falling off too. They saw me flying around, blocking shots, dunking, they knew they had something here.
Does your family get over here to watch you?
Not really. My brother and my mom are coming on the 26th [of December] though. They might watch the Miami game.
Are you excited about Duke?
I feel like Duke is similar to VCU in atmosphere. It’s not a lot of people, like 7,000 or something like that. Everybody is stacked on top of each other. If I’m being honest, I like atmospheres like that.
Taking VCU and Cassell Coliseum out, what are some of the best environments you’ve experienced on the road?
Dayton. They get wild up there.
What’s been the biggest adjustment for you coming from VCU to the ACC?
I think the toughest thing is slowing down. Sometimes I get a bit too excited out there and run around too much. Slowing down and actually understanding the correct next read to make instead of rushing. I feel like sometimes my body and mind just move and try to process things too quickly. I need to slow down at times. Especially with the way Coach Young wants us to play. That’s the main thing. The physicality and athleticism are obviously on a different level.
You mentioned wanting to expand your range in the offseason. How did you go about doing that?
It was painful. Mentally and physically. I was in the gym three times a day in the summer. I had to adjust my form completely. The tough thing mentally is that you can’t see the improvement straight away. You have to keep being consistent and having faith that you’re getting better each day. You have to be consistent over and over and over again. It was crazy. I probably shot about 15,000 jump shots this summer.
Does coach like you taking the three or does he want you more active around the rim?
As long as I give a good mixture of both, I’m good. I obviously have to stick to what I’m great at, which is around the rim. If I have a wide-open shot, coach has no issue with me trying to knock it down.
As a player, when shots aren’t going through, is there anything that you can change to make those go through?
With me and my teammates, we put a lot of work in, so we know they’ll go in eventually. When I’m finding struggles, the main thing I focus on is trusting the work I put in. You have to always trust in your work. You have to be even-keeled the entire game and season. Can’t get too high or too low. You have to try and find ways to get your mind in the game by doing the little things. Play defense, talk to your teammates, those kinds of things help a lot.
This team seems to have good chemistry.
I completely agree with that. I feel like one of the main reasons it’s like that is because in the summer, we were all new to this place. The things we went through in the weight room, oh my gosh. They made it easier for us to bond on and off the court. Everybody really likes spending time with each other.
Y’all got to do a lot of fun stuff over the summer like going to the lake.
We got in the boats. Somebody was on the jet ski, some were jumping in the water. I didn’t jump in.
Is that something you did in London?
Nah, no way.
Is the food in London different than it is over here?
It’s definitely different, but it’s definitely good, too. American food is good.
Is there anything that you wish was a thing over here that you like over there?
Chicken and chips. Like fish and chips but it's not fish, obviously. I like that a lot. Not sure it’s healthy for me.
I offered you popcorn and you said that you don’t like American popcorn. What’s the difference between the two?
American popcorn is salty. We have sweet, salty, sweet and salty, caramel, we have a much larger variety. If I eat popcorn here, it has to be kettle corn. It’s good, but I want sweet by itself.
Were you a big tea drinker growing up?
Yeah, but I’m a bit sick of it now.
What was your go to tea?
Tetley.
What’s Christmas going to look like for you here?
I’ll probably go to visit my girlfriend’s family for a little bit. Then I’ll come back.
Talk about your faith, I know it’s very important to you.
I thank god that I’m alive every day. Everybody has their different paths in life, but I feel like Jesus was calling to me at a young age. My mom is a devout Christian, my dad is a Muslim. I kind of chose my mom’s side. I felt like he was calling to me from a young age. My mom never forced me to be a Christian. I could see by the way she lived her life through her faith and her belief that there was someone there that was greater than everybody else. It made it easy for me to come to the faith. We wouldn’t be alive without God. I chose to glorify him in my life no matter what I’m doing.
When you’re going after a rebound, what’s the mindset?
I do it wrong. One of the assistant coaches, [Kevin Giltner], put a bird picture on my locker because sometimes I don’t box out. I’ll just go up and get a rebound. The correct way to do it, once the shot goes up, you find your man and box out, then you go get the ball. I abuse my vertical sometimes.
What do you do for fun off the court?
I used to play video games, but I kind of grew out of that. Now I just watch shows. I’m like an old person now; I just sleep and watch shows.
What’s your favorite show?
I don’t have one right now. I just watched ‘The Madness’ on Netflix. I usually just find something interesting on Netflix. Might be a documentary sometimes or just whatever show catches my eye. Nothing too crazy.
Mike Young
It’s been a fun two-game winning streak, a lot of bench production these last few games.
Rodney Brown’s emergence has been a real lift. He’s played and practiced much better. He did the work and put himself in position to help us. He had a really good game against North Carolina A&T and followed that up by being the first guard off the bench against Navy. He hit his first three 3-pointers. He’s a good basketball player, he sees the floor, he sees the game. He makes the right basketball plays. It comes easy to him. It’s good to see him come on and play good basketball.Pat Wessler has also been playing some good ball. [Ben] Burnham may have been the player of the game against Navy with that effort. He had a couple of big shots down the stretch. I’d like to continue to play 10. We’ve had a couple of teams where we could and a couple where we couldn’t. It helps in a variety of areas. If you help our chance to win, you’ll play. I thought all 10 of those guys who stepped on the floor Sunday helped us win.
Do you feel like you have a good handle of where your rotation sits?
Honestly, I think with this team, we’ll be hunting and pecking all year. Ben Hammond will start on Saturday, I think he had some really good ball games. I think I’ll continue to tweak it as we go along. I’ve had teams here where we’ve had the same starting lineup the entire year. Things affect that, injuries a lot. We’re healthy and doing well.
Talk about Tobi.
He’s a great fella. He’s adjusted to Blacksburg and Virginia Tech quite well. He’s a pleasure to coach. He’s continuing to learn the finer points of the game. He’s a willing learner, listener, he wants to get better, not afraid of the work. I’m telling you, it is a real treat being on the floor with him.
What’s been the difference for Ben Hammond lately?
He’s hit some open shots. I thought he looked more comfortable. He told me early on that he was really nervous. Most of the time the young guys don’t admit that. I thought he played timid and tight early on. The last two, he pinned his ears back and played very, very well. His passing has been very good. He plays the game without turning it over. He had a couple of bad ones against Pittsburgh and Vanderbilt. Every play that they see is going to be beneficial. You can see it now as we prepare for St. Joe’s, then Duke, then Miami. They’ve seen that action, they know exactly how we want to guard it so that we aren’t going through it so repetitively. They’re good players and played for good high school programs.
Walk us through Hammond’s recruitment.
It was abrupt. There are a lot of things abrupt in this recruiting world now. I’m sure Coach [Brent] Pry and his staff can agree. He was going to Rhode Island. I saw him play a lot, we’d recruited a number of kids from that school. Really good program. He came back on the market. I never asked him why. We got him down here to visit, love his family, great parents, his grandparents are great people. It worked out. He visited Tennessee too. We got him here in a Hokie uniform and I’m thrilled for that.
Just 13% of your scoring returned this year. When you look back, how difficult was it to get this roster?
It’s hard. It was a challenge. I’d done it the same way for a long time. I like taking time to really evaluate and get to know the families and people of his high school. I talk to facilities managers, custodians. “Tell me about Mike Burnop. Hard-working? Good kid? Have you ever had any problems with him?” It’s quick now. I’m not comfortable with it, but we have no choice. Dealing more with analytics and film, which I don’t like. There’s no substitute for getting out and seeing guys live, getting a chance to take a close look. This person’s game and character, how he interacts with his coaches and how his family behaves in the stands. How does he behave when things are going well and when they aren’t? How does he compose himself after a bad call? It’s hard. There used to be a time where I could call the high school coach and they’d tell me exactly what’s going on. They aren’t as honest anymore. They tell you what you want to hear. That is the new way of life for us. We continue to move about and do what we can.
Talk about Rodney Brown. He barely played for the first few games. It’s easy to just go sit on the end of the bench, but he kept working.
There’s nothing I despise more than a pouter. Don’t stick your lip out. There’s a lot to be learned about somebody in times of difficulty. You have two choices: Duck your head or continue to work. He’s practiced better, to his credit. There’s also something to be said about being ready when his number is called. I told him the day before that he’d be in the rotation and he’d be the second guard off the bench to help us win. He comes in and bangs a three, then does his job on and away from the ball defensively. He makes the right basketball play. He’s helped our team. I never agreed with the person who says, “He’s a better game player than practice.” I don’t subscribe to that line of thinking. I need to see you do it in Hahn Hurst when it’s just us. Can you run the stuff, defend the way we want to defend? He does that. He was ready when his number was called.
Talk about that moment with Conner Venable scoring his first point.
Bless his heart, I didn’t do it this year. Last year, an official was standing in front of me in a game against American or somebody. I told him, “You’ve got a chance to get that guy on the foul line and let him put one in the basket. I’m not sure if he can, but give him a shot.’ He called a foul on a three, a terrible shot. He didn’t foul any more than I did, [Venable] missed all three. He goes up there this year, the first two were such bad misses, but he made [the third]. That was an offshoot of Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point picture. They’ll never take that away from him.
How do you put these schedules together?
There’s a lot that goes into that. Blake Wetherington on our staff handles that. You’ve got some built-in games. Saint Joe’s will come back here next year, the ACC/SEC Challenge is going to happen. We needed to offset that road game with a home game, so we did that series with Saint Joe’s. We’re going to bring in five or six teams. Those are getting harder and harder to come by for a variety of reasons. I like playing in the tournaments. I know a lot of coaches aren’t in favor of those. We’re going to the Bahamas next year. Some of those, you schedule so far in advance. You can only do that same one every four years. We don’t go back to Charleston next year, but the year following. I don’t think we’ll ever go back to Maui. It’s just a lot to get out there and get back, you’re scared to death of the next game because of all the traveling. We had a week between Maui and I think Chattanooga, they did everything but come in here and beat us in our first year. Just takes a lot out of you. We had a redeye from LA and then drove up to Blacksburg. You want something better for your team, that betters your team.
What’s the next week-and-a-half look like?
I always give the guys off three or four days. We play Saturday, we’ll all break up in Philadelphia. Some of us will get in cars and go somewhere, some of us will fly home from Philadelphia. We have four full days off. We’re back on the 26th at 7:30 or 8 at night. We’ll do some conditioning and just get the ball rolling again. The morning of the 27th, we’re back in the weight room. We’ll practice once or twice that day. We’ll have ample preparation for the Duke game on New Year’s Eve.