Virginia Tech men’s basketball head coach Mike Young and freshman point guard Ben Hammond joined Zach Mackey and Mike Burnop Tech Talk Live on Thursday. They discussed the Hokies’ successful week at Florida State and Virginia and Wednesday night’s tough loss to SMU.
Tech (10-13, 5-7 ACC) is back in action on Saturday at Notre Dame (1 p.m. ET, CW).
Mike Young
Let’s go back to Saturday, big win on the road at Virginia. What did you learn about your team in that rivalry win?
I see a team that continues to get better. It looks like we’re approaching a finished product with this team and it’s development. It’s incredible to go down there, where I’ve never won with this Virginia Tech program, and fight and hang in there. Up 13 with under six to play and they got a shot to win. Really good things, good basketball, we’ve begun to come on defensively here in the last two weeks. A lot of encouraging signs.
What’s going through your mind there in that last possession as Andrew Rohde is taking it down the floor?
There’s a lot of things. You have to be able to step up and make those foul shots. I have great faith in Ben Hammond and Jaydon Young, who both missed the front end. Mylyjael [Poteat] misses two after that. You walk out of there with a relatively easy one if you knock down those foul shots. Our team is getting better on both ends. I thought the ball moved well, we had some big-time shots from Jaydon Young, Jaden Schutt and others that played good basketball for us.
What have you seen out of Jaden Schutt? He’s really come on as of late.
He was at Duke for two years and hardly played. The fine motor skills and other things that make up being a good basketball player in this league or any league, there was some rust there, he had kind of lost his way. He came here for a fresh start, glad he did. He’s been rising up and making big shots. He made a couple big shots at Virginia that have made me take a step back, they’re so impressive, timely and much needed. I’m very proud of Jaden Schutt, he’s a good basketball player.
He really shot the ball well there, too. You can see that he’s playing with confidence now.
He’s guarding better, too. His physicality on the perimeter was really bothering me. Like so many young people we’ve had here, if you show it to him and tell him where he needs to improve and do a better job, that’s exactly what he does. He’s doing that now at a much better rate. He is playing some very good basketball and it’s fun to see.
That Virginia team prides itself on its defense and has for years. You guys went there and turned the ball over just seven times. What have you seen change with turnovers?
I’m honestly not sure. For the average fan that could be listening, you may think to yourself, “What took so long for the guys to figure that out?” I haven’t even figured it out. It’s a daily emphasis. A coach and friend of mine said long ago that you should be able to watch a team practice and [gather] what’s important to that team and that program within the first 15 minutes. Anybody who has come into Hahn Hurst or Cassell Coliseum to watch us practice would be able to tell that preventing turnovers is a non-negotiable. You can’t turn the ball over and expect to win. I think better sureness, better decision-making, making the easy play instead of the difficult play. It just took a little bit longer to get it through to this team than it typically should. But a step in the right direction.
Against SMU, you had 16 assists to 10 turnovers. Those numbers are getting where they need to be.
We’ve been ranked nationally for so many years in my coaching career because it’s just a big emphasis. Tobi [Lawal]’s ball handling is coming around. There was a time where Tobi’s assist-to-turnover ratio was really bad. He’s taking better care of the ball. Had a bad one last night. Collectively, our ball-handling, decision-making and distribution are getting better. That is certainly promising as we head down the stretch.
Your team is shooting almost 10% better than it did at the end of 2024 and turnovers are down. Is some of that just a young group playing together for the first time and figuring it out as the season goes along?
I don’t think we can explain it any better than that. We’re starting two freshmen. I want to be able to do this for another 5-10 years, I hope I never have to start two freshmen again. I think the world of Tyler Johnson and Ben Hammond. They’ve handled themselves well and they’re getting better and better. I’m seeing a collective group that is getting more confident in one another and more confident in themselves. That is certainly essential.
The defense was connected early on against the Mustangs. SMU shot just 38 percent in the first half.
They’re very potent offensively. It was tied at 35 at half. We knew the ability to spurt that SMU has, they shoot the ball really well. I think they made four threes in the first half. We really wanted to keep those down under eight, and they got six down in the second half. A game that we should win. They found a grove and we didn’t handle some things well on either end. We did everything but win the game, and it was discouraging to kick that one.
It was tied at 61. The team spent so much effort on its defense. When it gets time at the end there, maybe you run out of gas just a little bit?
They’ve got good players. [Kario] Oquendo, Boopie Miller is a good player. That’s the best I’ve seen Matt Cross play. And Samet [Yigitoglu] is a difference maker. He’s a big 7-2, good hands, quick feet. He creates problems around the post area. You have to go get him with a double team, which softens you up to a two-on-one or three-on-two on the perimeter. That’s a tough bunch to handle, but that’s what we’re going to look like moving forward.
SMU is first in the ACC in transition offense and you held them to just five fast-break points. It seemed like the guys handled that task well.
This team has come on by leaps and bounds, and we needed to. I think back to the earlier games in the season and our transition defense was not good. You cannot give up transition baskets. We’re doing a lot better with that and getting set to see the action and react to it. We’ve spent an inordinate amount of time working on transition defense. Our team is doing a very nice job of handling what we’re giving them.
Mylyjael held his own, even against Yigitoglu at 7-foot-2.
Mylyjael had a really good game. Worked well and had some nifty post moves to get space. We had an action where he was turning over his right shoulder and got a left-hand jump hook down. Made some baskets down the stretch. Really good game from him.
Ben Burnham does a little bit of everything. In 21 minutes last night, he had 12 points, three blocks and three rebounds. When he was in, he contributed in a big way.
He’s a really good athlete. A sneaky one. Ben Burnham has been a valuable contributor. He’s always going to play really hard. There might be a mistake in there, but it won’t be from a lack of effort. He plays so hard. He’s having a good year for us.Ben Hammond seems to be coming along. You said that a year from now, he could be a better scorer than he is now. It’s been an adjustment for him coming from high school to the ACC.
It has been. He’s not a natural scorer or an elite finisher. He’s a little guy. He’s got a nice shooting stroke. I think all of those things are going to get better. He does a very nice job at creating opportunities for others. He had a couple [turnovers] that bothered me. Again, like Ben Burnham, he’s going a thousand miles an hour and giving you everything in his tank. Everything that he sees this year will benefit him greatly as we move on in his career. He’s a good basketball player.Hammond mentioned the entire starting five from high school, Paul VI, is playing power conference basketball. That is quite the program up there.
That is quite the team. Glenn Farello is a good coach, good man. They’re good again this year. I can’t imagine there being a better high school league in the country than the WCAC. DeMatha, Gonzaga, St. John’s, there’s really good basketball and excellent coaching. Very glad to call a lot of the coaches up there friends of mine.Over the weekend, Florida State head coach Leonard Hamilton announced that he will step down after the season. What was your reaction to that?
I was sad and disheartened, I am still. On the other hand, I’m happy for Coach Hamilton. He is a wonderful person, great coach, it’s been an honor looking down the sideline in seeing him lead the Seminoles. He’s meant a lot to college basketball, He’s meant a lot to Florida State and Tallahassee. He’s given a lot of kids unbelievable opportunities and helped a lot of kids through their time at Florida State and ensured that they graduate and have good careers as parents and husbands and working class folks. The game will miss him. It’s so typical of him, he didn’t say he retired; he said his time was completed at Florida State. I’d love to see him coach again somewhere. If I was an AD somewhere, I’d hire him. He’s terrific.When you joined the league, there was Coach K, Roy Williams, Hamilton, Jim Larrañaga, Tony Bennett, Mike Brey, Jim Boeheim. It’s a very pivotal time in this league with a lot of different changes.
That would be an understatement. I’m sure that each of those men have different reasons. Some of those changes drove some guys out, I’m certain. Tony Bennett said it best, ‘College basketball is not in a good place.’ I don’t know what the answers are, but I hope we get to those answers soon. Everything coming down on you all at once with the transfer portal and NIL and agents, it’s a lot. I’m certain that some of those guys looked around and thought, “Why in the world would I want to subject myself to that?” Jay Wright was the first of that wave. National championship coach, 60 years young, heck of a ball coach, was not going to mess with it. That’s where we are.The game has changed so much. Larrañaga told that story about after going to the Final Four, a few guys came in and said they wanted to leave.
I could talk to you for an hour and a half about the ills of college athletics and society as it pertains to college athletics. But I should probably keep some of my opinions to myself, Mike.You match up with the Fighting Irish this weekend. Markus Burton is one of the top guys in the country and is averaging over 22 points. How do you stop him?
Easier said than done. Stopping him is a bit of a pipe dream. He’s dynamic. Watched Florida State play him the other night, they denied him a lot. We don’t have the length and kind of player right now. They roll with Markus Burton. Coach Shrewsberry’s son, Braeden Shrewsberry, is a good player. They have a lot of the same kids back from a year ago. Great admiration for Coach [Micah] Shrewsberry and the things he’s done for the Fighting Irish. Going to have to play well to win.Notre Dame is like a lot of the other teams in the middle of the ACC with ups and downs and still striving for consistency.
I have not seen them play poorly. They weren’t their best on Saturday against Miami, where they lost. That was [the Canes’] first league win. They didn’t play their best on Tuesday in Tallahassee, where they lost. I saw them wear Virginia out in Charlottesville a couple weeks ago. Watched their game against Georgia Tech from a few weeks ago. They’ve got good players, everybody does in this league. We’ll have our hands full. We’re in the early stages of our preparation. We’ll get some things to our team today in practice, get up there tomorrow and do everything we can to win the game.What’s your take on the state of the league? Some will say it’s down, but as you’ve coached through this league, how do you see it this year?
I think it’s a really good league. The talking heads will always have an opinion. That’s what they get paid to do. SMU came in last night, they’re really good. With continued good play, they could find themselves in the NCAA Tournament. I think Wake Forest is an NCAA Tournament team. Pitt had a tough loss at home against Virginia, great respect for them. Duke could win it all. North Carolina is banging on the door. We have a month left to see where it shakes out when it’s all said and done. I do think that a number of teams can beat anybody. I’m excited for what the future of the ACC holds.We’ve had a lot of road games. What will it be like next week without a game?
I’m looking forward to it. I was telling Margaret before the SMU game, “It’s what we chose to do, it’s what we love to do. We’re in here every day. There’s a team to prepare and a game upcoming. We will not have to come to the office on Sunday.” I’ll give the team the day off Sunday. We’ll probably take Tuesday off. Anytime I can get them off a couple of days and get their legs under them and let them get away from basketball and all the preparation is always healthy. I’m looking forward to it.What is it about this team that’s allowing you to win on the road more than in previous years?
They don’t know any better. I don’t think they know how hard it is. To see them roll into Cal, who beat NC State last night, and win. To see them roll into JPJ, we all know how difficult that is. It’s a tough and resilient bunch. You go into another man’s home and you have to feel good about what you’re going to do to stop them defensively and how you’ll get shots and opportunities offensively. This is a good listening team that will do everything they can to execute what you give them. That part of it with this team has been enjoyable.Solid crowd in there last night for a 9 p.m. game. It wasn’t sold out by any means, but it got loud.
I look forward to Andy [Enfield] coming back in a couple of years with that thing full to the brim. Andy’s a friend, good basketball coach and appreciative of Hokies fans that came out. Cassell Guard was great. Great news, we have two more of them. At Boston College at 9 and Louisville coming in here at 9.