Virginia Tech forward Grant Basile shares his thoughts following 93-87 win over Notre Dame

The Virginia Tech Hokies were able to come away with a 93-87 win over the Notre Dame Fighting Irish on Saturday, and they got a monster performance from forward Grant Basile in the process. He poured in 33 points and grabbed seven rebounds in the win, which moved the Hokies to 15-10 overall and 5-9 in the ACC.

Basile was a hot commodity in the transfer portal this offseason, and the versatile forward has shown why this year for the Hokies, averaging 15.6 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 2.0 assists per game. During his last two outings, he’s averaged 30 points per game. Following his spectacular performance on Saturday, Basile spoke with the television broadcast crew and shared his thoughts on the game.

Basile picked up two quick fouls early in the game, which sent him to the bench early. That was a big reason why he only had seven points in the first half. In the second half, he erupted for 26 points. He discussed his mindset going into the second half.

“Yeah, our guys did a great job of picking me up. Me and Hunter [Cattoor] had two fouls at the half, up [three points]. And we found a way to get it done. But, I’d also like to verbally apologize to Justyn Mutts. Stole his rebound at the end for the double-double. He was not happy,” Basile said.

Speaking of Justyn Mutts, he finished the game with 19 points, eight rebounds, and nine assists, nearly tallying a triple-double. The broadcasters asked Basile what it’s like to play with such a talented player.

“He’s awesome. He’s such an unselfish player. He’s so much fun to play with. You look at what he’s been able to do over this stretch. He’s just diming people up. He’s such a good passer. He demands so much attention when he has the ball. He’s fantastic,” Basile said.

Basile then talked about Virginia Tech’s high-low set they run that he had a lot of success with against Notre Dame.

“We have a lot of sets. Coach [Mike Young] does a good job drawing up stuff for every matchup kinda depending on what they’re giving us. They were switching a lot of stuff and we found a way to take advantage of it,” Basile said.

The talented forward then took the time to discuss whether it was fun winning a game 93-87, in such a high-scoring affair.

“I’m gonna say yeah, but we need to play better defensively, obviously. That’s just too many points to give up. When we’re shooting it well like we did tonight, obviously we can win the game, but then there’s games where we don’t shoot it very well and we lose. That’s kind of been our issue. We need to continue to clean up the defensive end of the floor,” Basile said.

Finally, he spoke about his team’s mindset and how they’ve battled through adversity for much of this season.

“We have a lot of experienced guys. We’re ready to go. We knew that we put ourselves in a hole, obviously. So, we need to continue to just lock in and continue to climb our way out of that,” the versatile forward said.

Next up, Virginia Tech faces off against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. That one is slated for Wednesday, February 15th. Tip-off is slated for 7:00 PM EST.