Seahawks Bullied by Pirates, Wear Down Late
UNCW couldn't match ECU's physicality in the second half on Thursday night
East Carolina 74, UNCW 66
For the second time in three games, the Seahawks opened up a double-digit lead on an in-state rival in the first half.
And for the second time in three games, the Seahawks saw an in-state rival start building momentum before flipping the game with physicality and red-hot shooting in the second half, with the Pirates rallying to top UNCW on Thursday night in Greenville.
A quick look at where things went wrong for the Seahawks, who suffered a similar — though more dramatic — loss last week against Appalachian State.
(Don’t want to be the guy who writes when we’re winning and disappears after losses, but this will be brief because of a big work project tomorrow… unless we can raise the money to make this my full-time job, which I’d happily accept.)
Tough Night
From the start, it was a game being played with the physicality and intensity befitting of a rivalry.
UNCW came out of the gate with more energy, got some bounces early and played with more confidence while getting ECU into a bit of foul trouble.
It was hard to get a good handle on what was or wasn’t a foul on both ends of the floor all night long. Both teams were the beneficiary and victim of some calls and no-calls, and eventually, ECU became the aggressor.
“Give credit to East Carolina, they were well prepared,” UNCW coach Takayo Siddle said. “They came out in the second half and took the fight to us. I thought their physicality and their force overall, it wore us down.”
With both teams struggling offensively, every rebound was turning into a rugby scrum. More often than not, the Pirates won them, outrebounding the Seahawks 24-11 in the second half.
One sequence in particular seemingly put ECU in control, as the Seahawks just couldn’t close out a possession.
Instead of grabbing a board and heading back down the floor to put a little more cushion on the lead, the Pirates used three offensive boards to draw two fouls and get four points on one trip down the floor.
Rather than UNCW getting a shot at going up eight points, ECU cut it to a one possession game and Minges was going nuts.
It was especially disappointing because that exact scenario was an area of emphasis in UNCW’s scout.
“They closed the gap, and some free throw block-out situations came up — [we] talked about that so much — and we just didn’t handle it right and it took the life out of us,” Siddle said. “When it got loud in here, when adversity hit us, I didn’t think we responded the right way and that’s on me.”
Given how the game was trending, it was a bit surprising we didn’t see more of Noah Ross and Khamari McGriff, who brought plenty of juice early on and really set the tone for the Seahawks in the win over Florida Gulf Coast.
McGriff started the second half and exited at the 15:46 mark and never returned. Ross, meanwhile, started the second half and left for good with 17:34 remaining.
Well, Shoot
Coming into the game, the Seahawks ranked second nationally in 3-point shooting, hitting over 43 percent of their attempts.
And when the wide-open looks arrived on Thursday night, the Seahawks missed. And missed. And missed again. In all, UNCW missed its first 13 3-point attempts before Nick Farrar knocked down a big one with 10:34 remaining in the game.
In the opinion of one guy watching from his couch in Durham, they were mostly pretty good looks.
A guy whose opinion matters a bit more who watched from the sideline agreed.
“I am surprised; I thought we had some great looks,” Siddle said. “We make a couple of those, a few of those early, it’s a 15- or 20-point game, you know. I thought we had great looks.
“We didn’t knock them down and I’m confident that our guys will knock them down next time. All the credit to East Carolina; they out-physicaled, they beat us up and we didn’t handle it well.”
Both of UNCW’s best shooters, KJ Jenkins and Maleeck Harden-Hayes, got the quality of looks you’d dream of on five attempts apiece. They’ve gone in before this season, but they didn’t on Thursday night.
Weird things seem to happen to UNCW in Greenville, and it seemed the Hawks’ shooting luck turned at the moment they could least afford it.
Adding to that, the Seahawks didn’t do much for to help themselves with the gimmes, either.
Per Synergy, UNCW’s seven transition points on 11 possessions are the fewest ECU has allowed vs. a Division I opponent all season after giving up 22 vs. George Mason and 20 vs. Kennesaw State over the past two games.
Just a couple of layups could have changed the game.
A Slight Concern?
One thing from Siddle’s postgame comments did stick out.
In discussing his disappointment in how the Seahawks handled adversity, he pointed something specific.
“We couldn’t even get into our plays because we weren’t on the same page, guys weren’t echoing calls and their physicality, we couldn’t connect on a ball screen; we couldn’t connect on any of our screens,” Siddle said. “We’ve just to go to learn from it; we’ve got to learn from it, and if we can learn from it and get better, then we can win a lot of games, but if we don’t, then we’re going to struggle.”
On a team that returned so many guys from last season, it’s surprising to hear the Seahawks weren’t executing on the basics. That sort of thing was supposed to be an advantage over less-experienced opponents.
Again, we’ve got to point to the data which shows that they’ll find a way to get the message across in the very near future, because to this point, Siddle and his staff always have.
If we’re seeing the same mistakes after the return of Ahmard Harvey, and we’ve seen the full roster playing together a bit? Then we’ll worry.
Next Up
What better way to follow up a disappointing loss than heading to Rupp Arena to meet a Kentucky team made up of five-star recruits and future lottery picks?
The Seahawks and Wildcats will tip off at 4 pm on Saturday afternoon, and as always, we’ll have the full preview.
“This one is going to sting us, but we’ve got to move on quick, because we’re going to be playing against an NBA team come Saturday,” Siddle said. “We’ll bounce back.”