Talkin' to Takayo: Bahamas Recap, Trazarien White's Progress and Matt Moore
Talkin' to Takayo: Bahamas Recap, Trazarien White's Progress and Matt Moore
Here's what the UNCW head coach had to say during his first radio show of the season
After spending the majority of the first month of this season on the road, UNCW coach Takayo Siddle had plenty to discuss during his hour-long chat with play-by-play man Mike Vaccaro on Monday afternoon.
With the Seahawks riding a five-game winning streak into Tuesday’s matchup vs. East Carolina, Siddle touched on the tough opening schedule, building confidence in The Bahamas and the depth of his squad.
Throughout the season, you can catch Talkin’ to Takayo at Noon on Mondays, live from Buffalo Wild Wings.
We’ll have a full preview of the matchup vs. the Pirates on Tuesday morning, but for now, here are the highlights from today’s show:
On the early schedule and how the Seahawks have grown…
I think when you rewind back to when we first started, we knew the schedule would be tough for us and we knew there would be lessons to be learned in each one of those games, when you mention UNC, Oklahoma, UConn. We knew they were going to be tough, but we knew if we could learn our lessons and get better from game-to-game, that we would be better off as we transitioned to The Bahamas.
In each one of those games, we faced adversity; we showed a lot of mental toughness, showed a lot of grit, and we showed some maturity in adjusting from game to game and being able to execute three different scouting reports in a short period of time. So, our guys really grew up. We still have a lot of growing up to do, and I’m on them all the time for that, but we’re headed in the right direction.
On whether his team is getting there defensively…
I think so. As our rotations are starting to shorten up a little bit, they understand that being able to on the court, they have to be able to defend at the level we need them to. We’re still not there yet; our defense is ahead of our offense because we play against each other every single day and it obviously helps us out, playing against that high-pressure style every day. They are starting to get it a little bit and our rotations are really starting to shorten, and as a coach, I kind of like that a little bit.
On the depth of this team…
That’s a plus for our group. Our depth is something that I think can be a huge factor for us, and we don’t have the star-power like we had last year where Jaylen Sims could go off and Mike Okauru could go off — and I’m O.K. with that. I want to do it by committee.
It’s kind of hard to prepare for that if you’re our opponent, you never know who’s going to step up and have a big game. Throughout that whole tournament, I thought different guys stepped up when their name was called.
On the growth of Trazarien White….
He’s growing, he’s growing. Mike, you force me to talk good about these guys way too much, because they always come back the next day and struggle, but I’ll do my best. Trazarien, he’s doing it with his defense right now; his defensive energy is where I want it to be. He’s using that to ignite him on the offensive end — getting to the glass, getting out, running in transition, doing some other things. He’s playing some good basketball right now, and he’s got a long way to go.
On Donovan Newby and Maleeck Harden-Hayes playing well after moving to the bench…
It does say something about them, because they could have taken that and it could have been a negative thing, but they’re total team guys; they’re great people. They understood what we were doing — what we were trying to do — get them to see the game a little bit before we threw them in, to put them at ease a little bit. They’ve been playing really good basketball.
I looked an interesting stat: we’re No. 16 in the country in bench points per game, which is a really good stat for us. It’s something that I look at, and it makes us dangerous with those two guys coming off the bench, because they’re like starters for us. Those guys are great kids, they handled it the right way and that’s the reason they’re playing well right now.
On what happened in the comeback vs. Vermont…
Well, we started doing what we asked them to do. In the first half, like i mentioned before, we were just running around. They were getting all kinds of threes off, cutting behind our head; we had no resistance on the defensive end. We scored enough to kind of keep it close.
The second half, we came back. We played with some fight, we played with some toughness, we started making shots. We adjusted our lineup a little bit — the guys off the bench gave us some big minutes, and we were playing Maleeck at the five, and we decided to switch one-through-five so we could keep them in front of us a little bit better and stay connected a little bit more, and I thought that really helped us out. We were able to close the gap, and I thought we finished strong throughout the second half to finish the game. Very proud of our guys for that.
On guys adjusting to new and bigger roles…
I think with guys having new roles, and I think about guys from last year’s roster that we brought back, they’re having different roles and playing bigger roles. With that, there’s some inconsistencies, and we have to understand that as a staff and realize when it’s going on within the game, and it’s something we have to do — sit them out and bring some other guys in. Hopefully, the best part of this team so far is being able to pick each other up when one guy is struggling in a game. We’ve been able to do that pretty well so far in this short season. I think that is a factor.
I like that quality of this group, and I understand that as a coach, we’re going to have some inconsistencies with guys having bigger roles and bigger expectations.
On Shykeim Phillips’ play vs. Vermont…
He got in a groove and I thought it all started with his defense. He got some pick-six opportunities for layups, and he was really active pressuring in the full-court; I thought he did some really good things defensively. He wasn’t as worried about scoring, and it kind of just came to him as his defense was at a really high level.
With him — and I spoke with him Friday, I want to say — he’s coming into a new role. He was kind of like, he was a third option last year behind Mike and Jaylen Sims. So, he’s becoming the guy that people are focused on, top of everybody’s scouting report. He has to have some patience with him, as he’s coming into a new role, and he understands that. He had a really good game against Vermont, and we expect him to play that way. He’ll continue to grow in that role that he’s being forced into.
On the importance of UNCW’s solid free throw shooting…
It needs to continue to be that way. We want to play inside-out; I think we’re top-70 in the country in free throw rate right now. We’re getting there about 20 times a game in our Division I games. We want to continue to play inside-out; I think that’s the strength of this team, and it will continue to be that way. Getting to the free throw line will be something we continue to focus on.
On how they prepared for North Texas…
The first thing that we talked about with our group is how tough they are. They play really, really hard. We showed them so many clips of them diving on the ground, going to the offensive glass and how physical and tough they are. We wanted them to make sure they understood what we were going up against. We like to pride ourselves on being tough; they’re at another level with that, and we can learn a lot from them, which is what we told our guys.
We worked our way into how we wanted to defend them and attack them, and I thought our guys did a really good job executing the gameplan. That was our most complete game that we’ve played in the short season.
My whole pregame speech was, ‘Impose your will. Do us, at a high level.’ They’re (UNT) comfortable when they can run their patterns, when they can reverse the ball around, when people are not in their face. So, we wanted to make sure when we had opportunities to get in our press, we did that. In the halfcourt, we wanted to make sure we were in passing lanes and defending them with energy, and we did a really good job of it. I thought we imposed our will on them the entire game.
On the importance of winning a tournament in building a championship culture…
It helps. Coming from the CAA Championship Game, which was tough on us — tough on me. I didn’t think we were the best version of UNCW, and when I say that, we didn’t press like we should have, we didn’t deny and get out in passing lanes. We weren’t the best version of UNCW, so going into the CBI Championship, I knew I wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
Then, I had the same message with our guys as we played in this championship: “Let’s be us, and if we lose being us, I’ll be O.K. with it; but let’s not go out without being the best version of UNCW.’ We did a good job of that against North Texas.
Did he see some of the new guys getting an understanding of UNCW basketball?
I could see that as I was sitting back, just kind of watching them celebrate. Then watching them prepare from game-to-game, I could kind of feel their confidence and their awareness kind of growing from day to day.
Even the returners, they still were kind of like, ‘Can we do it? Am I this version of myself, like Coach is always talking about? Can we actually do it?’ Then, when we won the first game, I could see it Buidling up. Second game, third game, and then now, they’re really confident right now. We have a lot to clean up, but to continue to grow that confidence is something we’re focused on.
On the challenge of playing Coastal Carolina…
Another different game plan that we had a short prep-time for and we wanted to make sure, we always show them the other team’s identity right before we start introducing personnel and all of that. We wanted to make sure they understood we were going up against a really good baskebtall team that was hungry for another win.
We beat them last year, they have a Hall of Fame coach, all of those things we talked about. We knew they were really fast, really good in transition really good on the backboard. We knew they were going to pack it in and force us to beat them over the top.
So, we just tried to make sure they understood what we were trying to do on both ends of the floor, and I thought for the most part, we did a really good job of it in the game.
On the bench contributions (38 points) at Coastal…
It was huge. Jamahri (Harvey) came off and gave us some big minutes; I thought Nick Farrar, if it wasn’t for him, I thought we would have lost the game — he came in and made some big plays. Maleeck came in off the bench and made some big effort plays, toughness plays for us. I thought Donovan gave us really good minutes.
But you know, that was our fourth game in six days, so I knew we were going to need everybody to do be able to do that.
On the bench staying ready…
That’s the main thing, Mike. You never know when your number is going to be called. I’m always on them about just staying ready, and the biggest part of being ready is mentally. You have a couple of DNPs so you start to think, ‘Hey, maybe I’m not going to play the next game.’ Well, what are you doing from that game to the next one? Are you staying in the gym? Are you staying in the film room? Are you continuing to have a good attitude? And, if you’re doing those things, you can give yourself an opportunity to play well when your numbers is called. On any given night, I could bring anybody off the bench and they could have a different role than what they had in the game before.
On Jamahri Harvey playing well off the bench…
His attitude is what helped him play well in the championship game, his attitude from the previous game. He was great over there, and after the game, he celebrated with his teammates. He prepared himself better than he did in Round 2. He prepared himself in Round 3 — leading up to the game — he prepared like a champion, and he gave himself an opportunity to play well. I was very proud of him for that.
Player of the Week: Trazarien White
I’m not focused on scoring with him; I don’t ever want to talk to him about that. It’s all about being who he was last year, a better version of that, never getting away from it. The offense is just kind of icing on the cake for him: ‘Just be who you are, play with great energy, defend at a high level, go to the offensive glass, go to the defensive glass — everything else will fall in line for you.’
That’s what he’s doing right now more consistently.
On the importance of the Mount Olive win…
I think it was very important, Mike. You look back at the first few games that we played against powerhouses — Top 25 teams, Top 10 teams. Man, it was tough on us, but I go back to it: we stuck to the process, we kept working, the guys remained coachable. They stayed confident; we learned a lesson from each one of those games, and then we kind of got our confidence and we got our mojo going a little bit in the Mount Olive game, and that catapulted us into what we are right now.
On recent signee Matt Moore…
For starters, he’s a great kid with a great family. That’s one of the things — the first thing — we look at when we’re out on the recruiting trail. It was kind of weird how we discovered him, me and Coach Kanaskie. We were out at a tournament in Atlanta, we were actually watching another kid play and we had about an hour before our next game, and we decided to kind of stay on the court that we were on, and we started watching this game.
The game started off, and this kid just sprints down the court after blocking a shot, catches it, and takes off from a couple of steps in front of the free throw line, and dunks it. Then, he sprints back, blocks another couple shots, gets a couple rebounds and we’re like, ‘Whoa, who’s this guy?’ And we knew that was a position need for us, we play with a forward at that five position, and so we started watching him.
Coach Kanaskie started doing his research on him and we watched him again. We went up and saw him at another tournament and we fell in love with him as we started recruiting him a little bit more and got to know a little bit more about him. He’s going to help us in a lot of ways. I think we’ve got a steal in Matt Moore and somebody that will come in and compete for minutes as a freshman.
On finding a steal like Moore…
It happens like that, especially at this level. My experience at this level, you have a recruiting board where you have your top three or four at each position and you’d be lucky to get any of those guys. We had that happen one time when I was an assistant here, the recruiting class with C.J. Bryce and those guys. You’d be lucky to get the guys you actually want, that are actually on your board.
We discovered a hidden gem with Matt.
Did having another Chicago guy, Donovan Newby, help?
It helped a lot, it helped a lot. Donovan is a wonderful asset to this program and a great kid with a great family as well. It helped, it helped tremendously.
Where does recruiting stand for this class?
We’re all done right now. Obviously, I think some things will change with the transfer portal — guys not being happy or whatever it may be. So, we’re prepared for hat, but as of right now, things are as solid as it can be.
How do you keep turnovers so low?
I think a big part of that is that we practice more than we play, and we practice against ourselves every day. We pressure, we deny, and like I said before MIke, it’s not always pretty in practice; we throw it all over the place sometimes. We’ll never see the amount of pressure and physicality that we see in practice, in games, and I think that helps us out.
We can put a lineup out on the court where we have three point guards out there … we try to keep the ball in their hands as much as we can, so we don’t turn it over. So, I think that helps a lot.
We do a lot of dribbling drills, we do a lot of high-pressure drills to where they’re being denied and being under duress, whether that’s in the halfcourt, fullcourt. So, we try to prepare them for what they may see in games, and I think it puts them at ease when they’re faced with teams that pressure a little bit in games.
On emphasizing defense…
What we’ve done in this short break that we’ve had, is I put on the board, and I talk to them about why we’ve been successful … in our last five games, why we’ve been successful. We talk about it on both ends of the floor, we talk about it overall as a program — just some different things — and I ended it by saying, ‘We’ve won because of our defense. Here’s why,’ And we have to keep defending at a high level because it travels. We may have some games where we’re struggling to score, but we can always defend, and I think they understand that.