Everything From Virginia Tech Head Coach Mike Young After Georgia Tech Win

Virginia Tech head coach Mike Young spoke to the media after the Hokies' victory over Georgia Tech. Here's the entirety of what Young had to say:

On what convinced Young to start Ben Hammond (five straight starts, 20 points vs. Georgia Tech)

"He's scoring 20 points out every time. I'm not real sure. I think about it all the time, he's just playing so good. He's playing such good basketball. We need his firepower in that lineup. I would rather not play him what I'm playing him. I mean, he played [36:57} tonight but we need Ben on the floor and I think I told you after a home game, he may not start, but he's going to finish. Well, he's starting and he's finishing."

On whether the 1-3-1 defense Young deployed at the end of the game was an emphasis, given the Hokies' previous close losses:

"That's any zone. You don't want to play with big hands. We couldn't contain [Lamar] Washington. Neo [Avdalas] couldn't keep him in front if his life depended on it. Moved Hammond to him, and Ben's got a better chance. We couldn't get a corral to him, the five to kind of double-team him just to slow him down. We were fouling him and he got to the rim a couple of times. So, we went to a 1-3-1 that we work on quite a bit. I think that spooked him a little bit. We got it stopped. He had to get rid of it. They took a bad shot."

On what Young makes of a game like this contest vs. Georgia Tech:

"It's an ACC win. It's an ACC win. Move on down the line."

On the positional size challenges that Virginia Tech will face vs. No. 4 Duke (Sat. 1/31 at 12 p.m. ET, ESPN):

"A lot. I haven't seen them very much purposely. I watched some last night and I could have gone the rest of my Monday evening without seeing that. But I take that back, I've seen them against Georgia Tech. I'm not watching Duke play specifically. I've seen them against Louisville. But I'm not watching Duke. I'm watching the other team. We've got three days to prepare and they're analytically No. 5 in the country. Offensively, they're way up there as well. We got a couple of days here to get our arms around. I look forward to it."

On where Hammond's growth has come from:

"I don't know. He wasn't that kind of player. He was a point guard and he was on a great high school team. They were phenomenal. And he was a table setter. His AAU team, Team Takeover, he's a table setter. That was a great team. I think they won a national championship going into his senior year. He was a table setter. But he emerges here, as he's really a combo guard now. He's more a two than he is one, but he handles it. He doesn't turn it over. But my gosh, he just scores and he scores in bunches and he's shooting the fire out of it. As a freshman, he's trying to survive. As a freshman, he's trying to stay on the floor. The best way to do that is take great shots and don't turn the damn thing over. And we had some growing pains together a year ago, but I knew every rep he got would benefit him today. I never thought he'd score the way he's scoring it, but I'm not chastising him either."

On what made it hard to put Georgia Tech away in the final four and a half minutes:

"I got the most poised, smart basketball team that I've had in a long, long time. And we are anything but poised and smart down the stretch. We'll get better."

On if Young liked the looks his team was getting down the stretch:

"It's frantic. They went to a zone that I haven't seen much of. And we put [Amani] Hansberry in the middle of it. [Jailen] Bedford had a shot over here. He airballs it. We got all spread out. We got hesitant. And that's on me and something we've got to work on."

On Tobi Lawal and Amani Hansberry (combined 3-for-12 from field):

"We didn't shoot the ball worth a darn. We had six great looks in the first half that we typically get down. Thank God again for Ben Hammond. But I'm dealing too much with fouls with Hansberry. He plays 24 minutes tonight. He's got to play 30, 31, 32. He's fouling incessantly. He's got two fouls at eight minutes in the first half every game. He's got his third, 18 on the clock. I'm trying to get him [to the] under-12. He picks up his fourth. My god, cut it out. Tobi's got this boneheaded block. Up 11 or nine in the second half. We're just trying to get offense initiated and he moves the screen and there's there's a block. We've got to be smarter than that."

On the fans coming into Cassell Coliseum despite inclement weather in the Blacksburg area:

"Unbelievable. And I'm never surprised by it. I'll walk down to watch our softball team play in mid-April and it's kind of overcast and everything. That thing will be full. Wrestling. It doesn't matter. These people and that Cassell Guard and our fan base are special. They love it. They love Hokie athletics. They were ready to explode a couple of times tonight and I'm thankful. I'm appreciative. Let me assure you, it'll be a little more salty in there on Saturday, as you know."

On Georgia Tech head coach Damon Stoudamire making the remark that sometimes Hammond is too unselfish:

[Editor's note: Stoudamire also said that in his day, he would have taken more shots.]

"Yeah, he would have. I know that son of a gun. He would have taken them and I would have invited him to take more shots. That guy was a pretty good player. What a beautiful man. What a great person Damon Stoudamire is a really good basketball coach. I saw that same game at NC State last week. I saw the same game and Georgia Tech beat them. They've been so much better on the road than they've been at home. And I'm sure Damon's scratching his head. I thought they were good in here again tonight. I'm sorry."

On Virginia Tech's guards not committing a single turnover:

"I don't know that I have. Georgia Tech doesn't turn you over. It's not like they're messing with you. We had three at the half. I've got a great ball-handling team. And turnovers disgust me. Sloppy basketball disgusts me. Very good. We've got to get Avdalas back to playing like Avdalas, sharing and distributing. He's 3-for-15 from the field. He has two assists on zero turnovers. Avdalas is an elite passer, an elite playmaker and he's a great player. And we're going to figure it out. We're going to figure it out together. We've got to alter some things and we will. But I don't know that I've ever seen that minute distribution and not turn it over any more than that. Thank God we didn't."