The most difficult three months of Michael Young’s life became significantly more trying with a 1 a.m. phone call in October 2010.

Lounging in the dorm room of his New Jersey prep school after a long day of classes and workouts, Young picked up his phone and heard his mother’s voice. The details of the interaction are blurred by the passage of time and magnitude of the moment, but the news could never be forgotten. Young’s father had been shot and killed back home in Pittsburgh.

The move to St. Benedict’s Prep, as much as he dreaded it, was supposed to represent a new start. But everything the then-16-year-old Young believed he left behind in his hometown of Duquesne — or at least the things his parents hoped he could distance himself from — came back to him in an instant.

A setback that could have broken Young and derail a promising athletic career did anything but.

Circumstances kept Young largely apart from his father, also named Michael Young, prior to his death, but perhaps no one he knows has shaped his personal and professional life in quite as indelible a way. As Michael Young the son leaves behind a prolific four-year basketball stint at Pitt, the memory of Michael Young the dad stays with him, pushing him toward a professional career and a better life.

“If I just tried as hard as I can and be the best as I could at basketball, I knew I would become something,” Young said. “It would take me somewhere where I would be something other than what my father was.”

In Duquesne, about 11 miles southeast of Pittsburgh along the Monongahela River, Young said “every day was survival.”

“It was like you were in a land full of wolves and you were trying to survive,” Young said. “You’ve got different people trying to get at you for different reasons and trying to get you to do things you may not think are bad because everybody is doing it, but in retrospect, it’s something that can ruin your life.”

In a former steel town ravaged for decades by deindustrialization, drugs and violence, Young never found sports as a calling on which to cling. Standing at 6-foot-4 by the time he was 13, basketball became a natural outlet, a way to stay out of trouble.

Still, even with basketball, the shadows of Duquesne started to engulf him, or at least posed the threat of doing so. His mother, LaNette Braxton, began to fear what was taking shape, prompting her to look to Young’s father for help. Prior to that point, Young’s father was, for the most part, not a visible presence in his life, but he accepted the responsibility of providing a home for his son. On house arrest, the elder Young was in his McKeesport home every day, giving him and his son the chance to build a relationship that hadn’t existed.

The arrangement lasted about eight months, a time in which Young stayed away from the dangerous temptations offered by his hometown. His parents, though, agreed it would be best for their son, given the potential he displayed on the basketball court, to enlist at St. Benedict’s. Young rebelled vehemently against the decision, even running away from home, but he couldn’t avoid what awaited him.

“He had the size; all he had to do was get the technique and everything down,” said Jawan Bryant, Young’s older cousin and close friend. “It was basically putting the family and stuff aside and trying to see the big picture.”

The move came reluctantly and rarely went smoothly, with Young having to acclimate to a new home, culture and peers. Three months into his stay, he began to find his footing.

It was then that his life changed. On the night of Sept. 30, 2010, Young’s father was fatally shot multiple times at close range while standing in the doorway of an apartment building on Milwaukee Street in the Hill District. He was 33. Though police said a shootout may have preceded his death, a motive was not determined and the case remains open.

When Young went back to Duquesne for the funeral, the homesickness that dissipated in his first months in New Jersey didn’t return. He didn’t feel the urge to retreat to what was familiar. If anything, it was the opposite — he wanted to use basketball to drive him away from it, away from the circumstances that helped contribute to his father’s murder.

“When he got back, he seemed to be a lot more focused and more business-like in his development, wanting to do more to kind of honor his father,” said Roshown McLeod, Young’s coach at St. Benedict’s. “I just saw him straighten up a little bit more and understand ‘Hey, man, I’ve got to do this. I’ve got no other choices.’ ”

Though Young internalized much of the pain, he found solace in the company of others. McLeod, whose mother died at age 42, offered a sympathetic ear and voice. Tariq Francis and Brandin Knight — two coaches and mentors who had known Young since he was in middle school — continued to provide guidance and support.

Jamel Artis, Young’s roommate and future teammate at Pitt, became a constant presence in Young’s life. He, too, was dealing with family tumult, with his twin brother in prison. That shared torment accelerated what had already been a budding friendship. To this day, the two still refer to each other as brothers.

Altogether, they helped nudge Young in the direction in which he needed to head. His ultimate destination, though, would be decided by him alone and how he would let the loss of his father impact his life.

“All of us just tried to be there in any way possible, more so from a support standpoint,” said Knight, a former Pitt star and assistant coach who just completed his first season as an assistant at Rutgers. “You can either be a victim of circumstance or we can change the narrative on how your life has to go.”

The drive instilled in Young in those fragile months in 2010 transformed him from a raw and awkward project into one of the nation’s top 100 recruits. With the chance to go most anywhere, he chose the home he left years ago, selecting a school whose campus is within a half mile of where his father was slain.

With the Panthers, he became the program’s seventh all-time leading scorer, averaging a team-high 19.6 points per game as a senior and earning third-team all-ACC honors. His success raised questions about his professional potential. Though his defensive play was subpar for much of last season, his array of post moves and ability to stretch the court make the 6-foot-9 Young an intriguing prospect.

“The things that translate well are Mike can score inside and score outside,” Pitt coach Kevin Stallings said. “He can post up smaller guys. His perimeter shooting, though it fell off at the end of the season, is good enough that he’s a consistent perimeter threat and he’s able to draw fouls. All of those things bode well for any guy as an offensive player.”

His odds of being drafted in the NBA, though, appear slim. DraftExpress.com has him rated as the ACC’s 53rd-best prospect and the 25th-best college senior. Most any conversation about his NBA future comes back to an integral question — even in an increasingly position-less sport, is he big and strong enough to be a power forward or fast and athletic to be a small forward?

“There’s a very good career overseas for him,” said a scout who has filed several reports on Young. “He could definitely play basketball professionally for another eight to 10 years. His athletic ceiling hurts him in terms of the NBA, but I think teams would view him overseas as a very known quantity. He could continue to be the player he is for a long time.”

While the answer to that positional question appears uncertain, a professional career, one far away from the desperation that defined much of his life, seems like an inevitability. He’ll move toward that future in the same way he has for the past several years, singularly focused and pushed by an unseen presence.

“Knowing I came from the bottom is basically what motivates me,” Young said. “I always have that in the back of my head. That always keeps me pushing no matter what, even during a season like this season, where there are ups and downs. ... Even with a lot of stuff going against me, I always keep that in my mind, and that always keeps me pushing.”

First Published: April 2, 2017, 4:00 a.m.