Virginia Tech Coach Mike Young: "They Blitzed Us Early and Often"
Duke blew out Virginia Tech 88-64 on Saturday night, leading the Hokies from wire to wire.
“I just told my team the same thing I’ll tell you,” Hokies coach Mike Young said. “They were, obviously, very ready to go. My team was ready to go. They played an awfully fine basketball game, and that’s about all that needs to be said, I think.”
Duke lit up Virginia Tech from outside, making its first four three-pointers. The Hokies struggled to defend the perimeter while also defending center Vernon Carey Jr. inside without having a big man to put on him.
“We have no choice but to guard them the way we guarded them,” Young said, “and some of you may be scratching your heads, thinking that I made a mistake, but I don’t know who in the world can play Carey one-on-one, and I’m trying to do it with the best guy of all time, but he’s not very big. So we’ve got to constrict the floor. It’s what we did in Blacksburg, and it worked out very, very well for us. Now, he’s seen a lot of different defensive looks and a lot of different traps from different angles. I thought he did a marvelous job of getting over his right shoulder with his left hand. He’s a masterful passer. That part of his game has really come on.”
Young seemed to think that Duke got hot from outside at the right time.
“A good shooting team,” he said of the Blue Devils. “I don’t think they’re a great shooting team, but, because of how we have to defend, they make eight first-half threes. They blitzed us early and often. They were better, obviously. They were that good, and I didn’t think we were awful in spurts, they were just flat out better than my team on this particular evening.”
