after flashing potential last year, maddox ready for the spotlight

By Sam Alves

Staff Writer

October 25, 2022

BLACKSBURG — Practice has just begun, but Virginia Tech head men’s basketball coach Mike Young is already riled up. The banter and smiles from team picture day just a couple hours ago are long gone.

During Tech’s offensive install, transfers and walk ons struggle to run sideline out of bounds plays smoothly. Or to pass the ball to the correct hand. Or to run the play at all.

But Darius Maddox — a former in-state, consensus top-125 recruit out of Oak Hill Academy — is the inbounder and is in control. The offense is running against air this practice period, but Maddox’s growth is still evident.

“I remember Darius’s [freshman] year,” started former Hokie guard Nahiem Alleyene, whose transfer to UConn opened a spot in the starting lineup for Maddox, “he couldn’t even remember a play.”

That’s one explanation as to why Maddox, despite his status out of high school, hardly played as a freshman in the COVID-19 altered 2020-21 season. The 6-foot-5 guard maxed out at nine minutes and scored his only nine points of the year in a 40-point home blowout against Coppin State.

But the mental side of transitioning to college basketball wasn’t the only reason Maddox struggled to earn playing time as a freshman. He was MIA in games because he wasn’t putting in the bare minimum behind the scenes.

“Even sometimes [during] my freshman year, I would miss some workouts and stuff,” Maddox said. “Talking with the staff and having them be brutally honest with me. Sometimes it hurt, but to really change and grow up, you gotta accept things for what they are.

“...Over the last couple of years talking to coach Young after the season and during the season, [he had] conversations with me that were real — telling me that at certain points, he really didn’t like coaching me too much because he thought I was a little bit more lazy and in a sense, too cool.”

So while Maddox’s even-keel personality on the court endeared him to Hokies fans — he looked, deadpan, into the crowd after a game-winning 3-pointer against Clemson in the ACC Tournament, for example — it had the opposite effect with the man dividing up playing time.

But after candid conversations with his coaching staff, the fruits of Maddox’s rejuvenated efforts began to show.

“I thought [Maddox] was terrific over the last half of last year,” Young said ahead of the 2022-2023 season. “I’ll never forget the 20 points he had against North Carolina in that [ACC Tournament] semifinal game. He was really good throughout and is ready to go and looks healthy and is practicing really, really well to this point. Very excited about Darius.”

Maddox followed up his 20-point outburst against UNC with just six points against Duke in the ACC Tournament championship game and five against Texas in the first round of the ACC Tournament. Over those two games, he missed all five of his 3-point attempts and shot a combined 5-of-16 (31%) from the floor.

With Maddox slotted into Tech’s starting lineup for the first time as a junior, more pressure will fall onto Maddox — and true sophomore Sean Pedulla at the point — to score more consistently and hold their own on the defensive end.

The relationship between the two spark plugs off the bench a season ago actually led to the approach which earned Maddox more playing time down the stretch.

“I remember plenty of times last year, more so at the beginning of the year, where I was talking to Sean like, ‘Man, next year is going to be fun; we’re really going to be able to play and display our talents together on the floor,”’ Maddox said. “...I know sometimes in practice, he would look at me in practice like, ‘Bro, I’m shooting every shot today.’ Or, I would look at him at practice like, ‘Oh, I’m not passing today.’ Just us being ultra-aggressive.”

And how did that aggressive approach transfer to the court during games?

“I think it would be the Miami game at home,” Maddox started, describing the turning point of his season last year. “...I didn’t really play [the two previous games]. I was like, you know, next time I come into the game, every time I touch the ball I’m shooting it. I just happened to hit shots that game.”

Maddox made 5-of-7 3-pointers in a crushing 78-75 loss to the Hurricanes.

“The teammates on the bench were telling me, ‘Yeah, go ahead. Shoot. It don’t matter. He’s [Young’s] probably going to take you out anyway,’” Maddox recalled. “So, I just kept shooting and he left me in there. I was like, ‘Oh, OK. So this is the mindset I have to have every game: Be ultra-aggressive, and then on defense, obviously, be really aggressive.’”

A naturally gifted scorer, the last piece to the puzzle for Maddox is on the defensive end. As a starter, Maddox will have to defend longer and at a higher level. Luckily for him, he has fellow wing Hunter Cattoor — who’s developed into a stout defender over four years in Blacksburg — as a guide.

“Darius has been very coachable in the aspect of he’s always asking me questions,” Cattoor, the lone player from Young’s first Tech recruiting class still on the roster as a senior, said. “[He’s] never shy to ask me this or in practice how I do this or how I do that. Any insights I have, I try to give it to him.

“Obviously, watching film helps a lot, so telling him that aspect. But just different angles and the physicality of the game….He’s made huge strides since last year on the defensive end.”

Maddox stuck it out and grew slowly into the role he always expected to be in, so what’s next?

“All I’m going to say is you can expect me to give it my all every game,” Maddox said. “And definitely to be a positive teammate, positive body language. Just to be myself.”