Everything From Virginia Tech HC Mike Young After FSU Loss

Virginia Tech men's basketball head coach Mike Young spoke to the media after the team's 92-69 loss to Florida State Saturday afternoon; here's the entirety of what Young had to say:

Opening statement:

"Luke [Loucks] and the Seminoles, they outplayed us. They outcoached us. Maybe the understatement of the year.m Up 42-39, I didn't think we played great in the first half. But I liked a lot of things. I thought we could have been up, if not should have been up by more. Mishandled a couple of things and thought we had it all squared away. Bad start to the second half. The ball was on the floor too much, compared to where it was not in the first half. And they found some matchups, needless to say, they liked and they exploited those. [Martin] Somerville kid comes in, he's a good player, but had never seen that. [Chauncey] Wiggins, I've seen for a long, long time. He can really catch and shoot the ball. You've got to make him dribble to his shot. But all the while, you're shrinking the floor as best you can to take care of [Robert] McCray, who's really dynamic and good with the ball. So, there the ball goes, flying around. AJ Swinton makes two first-half threes and Wiggins played quite well, as well. So, bad day for the Hokies. The only response we've got is to bounce back on Tuesday in South Florida and play better. And I know we will."

On Florida State's defensive work:

"Can't be so up here, the ball's got to get into places, and we try to go through [Amani] Hansberry, who's been fabulous. He didn't have his best day. I think he kicked it four times. They're going to trap him, which we expected. Amani has done a great job of putting the ball on the other side, where you should be playing two-on-one. We just didn't execute that part of it quite as well as we expected to."

On Florida State's 18-for-23 clip in 2H and whether that was more FSU making tough shots or bad closeouts by Virginia Tech:

"I never want to discount, just discard it that they were making shots. You've got to guard it better. To their credit, they saw some things on film coming in that they liked. They just went at us one-on-one in a couple of instances, a number of instances. Now, you're trying to compensate for that. And here goes the ball, spraying back to Wiggins. And they got it, they got it."

On whether VT just wasn't making shots:

"It was a combination, a bad combination. So, part of it, hate it. Feel bad. Need to give them more. Everything the Seminoles touched there in the second half went well for them offensively. So again, Miami, here we go."

On Miami's press and defense switches:

"I don't think that bothered us, David. They do that a lot, just to slow people down. Play a little zone, which they don't typically stay in it. After a pass or two passes, they're matching up again, 2-2-1, back to zone. Now you're getting deployed, and you can't redeploy and get something else. Just got to play basketball. It slowed us down a tad. We've seen it. We've seen it with this team and have come out of it. Well, I've seen a bunch of games of Florida State since Wednesday. Thought we had the right plan that they did. They bogged us down a little bit."

Q: Did you feel like them attacking one-on-one, taking advantage of some things, your defensive lapses kind of bled over offensively a little bit?

"Maybe, maybe."

On the level of execution and how Young explains the disparity from the 76-66 victory over No. 20 Clemson:

"I'm not sure I've got an explanation. We had a great win on Wednesday. We played a really good basketball game against a very good team. Our team certainly understood the magnitude of this one. Watched Florida State play really well against Virginia at home on Wednesday or Tuesday, whenever it was. All but beat Duke at home. We knew that they were talented. We knew that we didn't see anything tonight that we hadn't seen in games prior. But it wasn't a mental lapse on our part at all. This group has been great in that regard. It started rolling downhill, and we couldn't put a stop to it."

Q: Did you feel your defense was doing certain things, not as well in the second half as in the first half?

"Yeah, you've got to be more physical. The ball can't get downhill as well as it did. They were getting into us, stepping away from us and making shots. We've had a number of teams trying to do the same thing. We covered it up. Not tonight."

On when Young begins preparation for Miami:

"We're 26 games in. We've played a bunch of them. We've had some great, great moments. This is a tough one. We come back tomorrow. We do whatever we're going to do with David Jackson, our strength coach, and we learn from this one. We look at some film of this one. We dust ourselves off and start with our Miami preparation. It's a quick turnaround, I guess, 72 hours, and we play down there. So, that's our plan."

On Ben Hammond (16 points):

"He's doing it night and night out. Had a tough night with NC State, as we're aware of. He was awesome against Clemson. I was really good in here. I think he had two first-half threes. Was really dynamic and playing good ball. He's a dandy, you know that. Again, he's doing it night and night out, really proud of him."