Virginia Tech men’s basketball assistant coach Christian Webster and head coach Mike Young joined Zach Mackey and Mike Burnop on Tech Talk Live on Thursday night. The Hokies (8-11, 3-5 ACC) had won two in a row before dropping back-to-back games vs. Wake Forest and at Georgia Tech.
They’re back in action on Saturday at 5 p.m. ET vs. Clemson inside Cassell Coliseum.
Christian Webster
How are you?
I’m doing well. I appreciate y’all having me.
Take us through the Wednesday loss.
I think the main thing was the struggle to shoot the ball. Going back on film, it was like there was a lid on that thing. Seventeen turnovers sticks out too, you can’t win on the road in the ACC with those stats. Georgia Tech made it tough on us.
How about at the end? Had it close and they just made plays down the stretch.
Too many. Had it down to two with two minutes left. They capitalized on some unfortunate turnovers, that just can’t happen. That’s why it ended up the way it did.
What do you tell these guys when things like layups aren’t going your way?
It can’t affect your defense. It can’t affect your energy. It can’t affect your talk. It can’t affect you helping your teammate the next play, offensively or defensively. We’re human beings. I played the game, I like to score. I know the energy you get when you do score, you start talking a little louder, smacking the floor. It has to be like that all the time. Keeping it like that when you’re missing the open shots, those are the kind of plays and energy we need to win games.
How do you get some of those guys like Tobi Lawal and Jaden Schutt off to a quicker start?
We looked at the stat sheet at halftime, I don’t think Jaden Schutt attempted a shot. That was one of the main things that we were talking about was to get him going. Just like when we played Wake at home, he came out in the second half and banged a three right in front of our bench to start the second half and I felt like that gave us a jolt. Tobi was the same way. We run a lot of actions for those guys. They’re two of our better players and leading scorers, we need them to get going early. We haven’t been on the road much in this league, but to go down to Atlanta and win that game and come home feeling good, those two have to play well.
What do you tell the guys regarding the turnovers?
Sureness with the ball and with your passes. We’re at a point in the season now where you should know exactly where your teammates are and where they’re going to be. That chemistry is there. We’ve been playing better basketball as of late. We just have to keep that going and stop with the silly turnovers. There’s a difference in making a pass where you have great intentions and the play is there, but the silly, unforced ones are what really hurt. The ball slipping out of your hands or accidentally stepping out on the sideline. Coach Young really hates that. I’ve been with him for a number of years now and the amount of times I’ve heard him get onto guys for that. If you can just cut down on the silly turnovers, it would be beneficial.
You guys did a good job rebounding with 14 offensive boards, but you couldn’t convert those into second-chance points.
Like I said, the rim must’ve had a lid on it. It’s different on the road, we aren’t in Cassell Coliseum, so that makes it a little harder. But we have to find ways to put those balls in the basket. Guys like Tyler Johnson, Tobi Lawal, Ben Burnham are all guys who have done a great job for us on the offensive glass and getting us extra possessions. It’s on us to find ways to put it in there.
Tyler Johnson had 10 rebounds against Wake Forest and another five against Georgia Tech. Can you talk about how his recruitment went along?
He’s going to be a really good player for us. He’s a guy we targeted because of what he brings. The toughness, the 50/50 plays, the winning plays he brings. He played on a really good high school team at Oak Ridge. I think their whole starting five, at least most of those guys, have major offers. The things he brings to the table, a lot of it doesn’t show up on the stat sheet. The defense, the hustle, we saw that in him out of high school. Coach Young likes to run a style of offense where we move the ball and space the floor. You need that guy that is a connector out there and does a lot of different things. He does that for us.
What does the calendar look like recruiting wise?
It’s changing by the day. Right now, we’re recruiting a lot of juniors for that class of 2026. There will be some rising seniors this spring and summer. We have to head out and see them a lot after the transfer portal window closes up in April. Right now, we’re talking to juniors, seeing their games. Going and seeing the two guys we have signed, they’ll both be really good players. One from Virginia, one from D.C. Watching those guys, making sure they feel the love and then keeping tabs on the next group of guys in the class of 2026
Do you guys ever offer before going to see a guy with so much of high school basketball being on tape now?
That’s a good question. Nowadays with all the video stuff we have, you’re able to see guys without being present in the gym, so that’s really helped us target guys. Word of mouth is big as well. Leaning on coaches that we respect and trust. Tyler Johnson, for example, comes from a great school in Orlando. The coach there is very well respected, runs a great AAU team, so if he tells me I need to offer somebody, a lot of times that’s all that needs to be said. I trust that guy, he’s brought us good players in the past, I’ll take him on his word.
How much is the transfer portal and NIL changing?
Every day that thing is evolving and changing the landscape of college athletics as we know it. There’s texts going around now as we speak about who could be a potential portal candidate. We have an army of guys on our staff patrolling that as the season goes along while the coaches are doing scouting reports on how to beat Wake, Clemson or Georgia Tech. Those guys are creating a board of players that could enter the transfer portal. Last year, we had to create a whole new roster. Hopefully we can hold onto some of these guys this year. It’s tricky and you need all hands on deck.
When you came to Virginia Tech, when a kid told you that he wasn’t coming here, you just had to move on. Now, you tell them to let you know if anything changes. Have relationships changed like that over the last few years?
Absolutely. I was joking with the staff the other day saying, “Every kid in Virginia, I don’t care if he’s five-star or two-star, we have to recruit him.” Just to have those relationships, even if it’s one text message. Go back in your phone to your texts from 2025, you’ll see a text from Coach [J.D.] Byers where he said he liked your game. That text could go a long way, even if that kid is getting recruited by the blue bloods, it may not work out. Keep tabs on those players and those relationships, you never know what initiating that contact could lead to. That has changed so much in nine years since I first got here.
Speaking of keeping tabs, give us an update on some of those guys you used to coach like Justin Robinson, Keve Aluma, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Kerry Blackshear Jr.
It brings a smile to my face when you bring up some of those names. Those are some great players that we’ve had over the years. A lot of those guys have become fathers — Kerry Blackshear, Nickeil Alexander-Walker. Almost all of those guys are still playing professionally overseas, Nickeil is still doing well in the NBA. For the most part, those guys are still playing. A couple of them have reached out to staff and said that they’re interested in coaching. Hunter Cattoor, Justyn Mutts, they’ll both be phenomenal coaches one day, have reached out and said that they were thinking about it. They reached out to me, Coach [Kevin] Giltner, Coach Young just to see what it was like on a daily basis and if we could assist them. Those are the why’s to coaching. The relationships, seeing some of these guys become fathers, they want to follow your footsteps and become a coach, it’s really cool.
What led you here to Virginia Tech?
That’s a good question. Before I got to Virginia Tech, I was a student-athlete at Harvard for four years. I never really thought that this would be an option for me. Harvard happened because I was a good student in high school and I went to a really good high school that prepared me for that. I’ll never forget that first time Tommy Amaker called me on my house phone and I thought one of my friends was doing a prank call on me. He had a really good relationship with my dad, they played in high school together in the early 80’s coming out of D.C. It was my dad, Coach Amaker, Len Bias.
Once that got introduced to me as an option, it was a no-brainer. Harvard at that time had never won an Ivy League championship, so to be able to do that with Coach Amaker, who had been at Duke… At that time, I thought I was an NBA player; I never knew how far off I was. But to prepare me to hopefully play professional basketball, it was a no-brainer. The vision he shared with myself and all the other guys he recruited from all other areas, it was a really cool experience. It’s something I hold near and dear to my heart.
What’s it like walking around campus at Harvard? You’re a basketball player, but these students around you could be a president one day or a judge. What’s that like?
It was pretty intimidating. I always tell a story about a guy that was on the team, Alex Nesbitt. He left practice one day, and his dad’s best friend is Barack Obama, and at that time, Barack was in office. He left practice to go to Michelle’s birthday, and then he just starts sending us all these pictures from the White House. He’s with Alicia Keys, Stevie Wonder and Barack Obama. I’m texting him like, “Dude, there’s 10 inches of snow in Boston, I’m trudging to class and practice and you’re in the White House?” But those are the kind of people you meet and the kind of elbows you rub there. I wish I had reached out more to other pockets of people across campus. I found myself with the football and basketball teams because those are the guys that are most like me. Now that I’m looking in different magazines, I see somebody that was in my economics class and I never said hello to them. I do wish I had done that, but it was an honor to be there.
When you look back at the 90 career victories and three Ivy League titles, do one or two games stand out to you?
Being a part of winning the first championship and beating Princeton, it felt like being on the Boston Celtics winning the finals with the way people were acting. One of my best friends, Kyle Casey, had a big dunk, and I remember it like it was yesterday. The playoff game we played, back then the Ivy League didn’t have a tournament and we were tied with Princeton. They had us play at Yale. A kid named Doug Davis hit a baseline out of bounds play with 2.7 seconds left. I was on the court, they won the championship and they went to the tournament. That was my sophomore year. We played Oklahoma State in Stillwater for our NIT game and got killed. Being a part of the NCAA Tournament [the following year in 2012] and seeing that blue sticker on the court and knowing all of your friends and family are watching, nothing like that.
How much do you use that psychology degree?
Every day. Psychology is something that my dad does. He’s a clinical psychologist now, working from home. That’s something that he told me I can use for anything. Business, coaching, whatever it was. I took an economics class my freshman year because I wanted to do business, I didn’t know that Harvard didn’t offer business. I went into that economics class my freshman year and got a C-. I was in my head like, “I’ve got to get out of here, I was lucky to survive this class.” I remember getting in there the first day, and the guy who wrote the textbook was the professor, Greg Mankiw. I’ll never forget it. That was cool, but that’s how I fell into psychology.
