Virginia Tech Basketball: Hokies Respond to Mike Young's Message in Win Over Winthrop

After beating USC Upstate, 93-74, last Friday night at Cassell Coliseum, Virginia Tech men’s basketball coach Mike Young admitted his left after the game against the Spartans discouraged. It’s a word that the veteran coach seldom uses.

Why was he discouraged? His team just gave up a concerning 74 points to USC Upstate, which included a 16-2 run to begin the game. There was no resistance on the defensive end for the Hokies early in the game. After a timeout, things got better, but not good enough for the former Wofford coach.

“I was discouraged when I left here Friday,” said Young. “We had to take a quantum leap forward defensively (against Winthrop), and we did.”

To say that the game was a rock fight between the two teams would be an understatement, but it was one that the Hokies won, 58-52. Winthrop is a good mid-major team that returned four starters from last season’s team and it wouldn’t be surprising to see them in the NCAA Tournament in March as the Big South champion.

Virginia Tech won the battle on the boards and had very active hands on defense in the passing lanes, taking many of the options the Eagles had and wanted to go to. Freshman Tyler Johson was big on both ends with 10 rebounds.

“That was a good team,” Young said. “We were going to have to play better than we did against Delaware State and Upstate.”

One key was making Winthrop work for most of their shots and pushing up against the shot clock, which the Eagles did very well against the Hokies. This Virginia Tech team is going to have to work hard each night on the defensive end as they did Monday night and if they don’t each night is going to be a long night. For one night, Young didn’t leave Cassell Coliseum discouraged.