(We’ve got a special Perchcast episode for you, but we also wanted to include a little on the Elon game here, too, before getting into Charleston!)
UNCW 82, Elon 70
It was the best of times, it was the less good of times, and then, it was Road Scoops time.
Strange things happen when UNCW visits Elon, and Thursday night was no different, with the Seahawks unable to build on a dominant first half performance, and instead, found themselves fending off the Phoenix over the final eight minutes.
After leading by as many as 23 in a free-flowing first half, UNCW found itself in a second-half slugfest that featured 32 fouls and 49 free throw attempts between the teams.
The Phoenix drew within 65-62 with 7:55 remaining, but the Seahawks buckled down defensively to force misses on six of the next seven field goal attempts, took care of business at the free throw line and headed out for ice cream.
Now, it’s time for Saturday’s BLACKOUT* game vs. the Cougars, featuring new alternate uniforms for the Seahawks.
Per UNCW, students will be receiving black t-shirts, while everyone else should wear teal.
In this super special *air horns* edition of Perchcast, we discussed one of the more bizarre basketball games we’ve seen UNCW play in recent years, then jumped into Saturday’s big rivalry matchup with Charleston.
So much to discuss, including:
Trazarien White’s incredible night (31 points, 11 rebounds, 6 assists)
BLACK ALTERNATE UNIFORMS ARE BEAUTIFUL
Maleeck Harden-Hayes’ absence and his prognosis for Saturday, plus a potential injury for Donovan Newby?
Was this UNCW’s best half of the season? And which half was more important?
Charleston dropped one to Towson. Does it matter for us?
Savoring the experience of Trask on a night like Saturday.
Keys to knocking off Charleston.
Is there anyone with the potential to be an X-Factor for the Seahawks?
You’ve got good questions, we’ve got answers of varying quality!
Since I’m not writing a full story on Elon, figured I should share a few quotes from Coach Takayo Siddle’s postgame interview with play-by-play man Mike Vaccaro.
On what he told the team at the half…
I talked to them about what we did well and why we did it so well.
Our energy and our toughness and our force was really good; like you said, it was probably the best half of basketball we’ve played so far in this season. I thought everybody was engaged, locked into the gameplan. We wanted to pressure, we wanted to play fast; we did that, and everything was predicated off our defense, and we did a really good job of defending and getting after them.
I wanted to make sure that they understood, ‘Great half; it’s over with. We have to come out here because they’re going to play with a lot more force than they did in the first half, and we have to be able match it.’
On Elon’s second half adjustments…
They started playing faster, they started attacking us off the dribble a little bit, posting us more; trying to be imposing, and they were crashing the offensive glass with so much force. We didn’t handle it right early — and for the majority of the second half — but when we needed to, that last eight minutes, we did.
On the adversity and lesson of ending up in a tight game…
It’s really not that situation, Mike. It’s the adversity we faced in the nonconference with some of those losses, the adversity that we faced early on in the conference season. So, when adversity hits us in a game — I’m not going to say it’s nothing — but we know how to handle it. We just needed to regroup and respond together as a team.
On Ahmard Harvey (2 points, 2 rebounds, 1 block in 11 minutes) and his return from the foot injury…
He’s trying to gain trust in it. He’s still a little timid in the paint around feet and finishing and stuff like that, but he’s playing within himself right now. He’s not trying to force anything, he’s playing within our system and hopefully, he can continue to heal and get better, because I think he’s really going to help us.
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