Talkin' to Takayo: No panic for Seahawks after disappointing loss at Jacksonville
Here's what the UNCW coach had to say during his radio show on Monday
Apologies for the lack of content before and after the Jacksonville game. Like many places these days, we had a little bit of a staffing issue due to illness over the weekend.
Anyway, we’re back on it and looking forward to a two-game week for the Seahawks, first playing host to Mount Olive on Wednesday night before visiting High Point on Saturday afternoon.
To get things kicked off, Coach Takayo Siddle joined play-by-play man Mike Vaccaro for his weekly radio show on Monday, where he reflected on Saturday’s loss at Jacksonville, the leadership of James Baker Jr. and a few more points ahead of this week’s game.
The show was a little different this week, as assistant coaches Kurt Kanaskie, Travis Hackert and Craig Ponder each took segments to talk about their roles at UNCW.
Their comments are certainly worth a listen if you missed out.
Here’s everything that Siddle had to say:
On the Jacksonville game…
I thought we got off to a better start than we normally had and then, there’s a point — it was 16-10 — where we somehow got deflated. Throughout the game, I thought we played hard – we played hard.
It was one of those games where they beat us over the top and they hadn’t done that all year. They made a lot of threes, they had some run-out layups as well, but I thought whoever they played that night, they were probably going to beat them because they played about as good as they can possibly play.
When he realized it was just not their day…
I thought probably that first four minutes in the second half. We’ve been down before, and we fought back. That first four minutes in the second half, I knew that they were still going to be as hot as they were and we just didn’t necessarily have what it took to match that on that particular day. They were really, really good on Saturday.
On what Jacksonville did defensively…
Going into the game, we knew they were going to be physical. We knew they were going to be physical right around that 3-point line area and we tried to prepare our guys as best we could, but we couldn't mimic their physicality as well as we needed to in practice. I thought it really, really bothered us and put us in some tough spots.
I thought we played hard, like I said. We didn’t have a ton of defensive errors; we didn’t. They just played ridiculously well on the offensive end and they imposed their will on us with their physicality.
On what you learn from that game…
It’s one of those things where you talked about, we won’t watch tape. We’re just going to throw this one in the trash and still believe in this team at a high level and know that we’re going to win a lot of games. We’re going to get this fixed in a hurry. It’s one of those situations, Mike, where it’s college basketball — basketball in general — it’s full of highs and lows and it’s about how you handle it.
In these next two games, it’ll be extremely important that we get back to being who we are. We like to call it mojo – we’ve got to get our mojo going a little bit. We’ll tweak a couple of things, but it’s not one of those situations where, when adverse situations hit, everybody starts panicking and everybody starts changing everything that they’re doing. No, we’re not going to do that; we’re going to try to do “Us” better and get back to playing at the level that we know how to play at. We’re still confident and believe in this team at a high level, and we’re going to win a lot of games.
On the big-man and guard combos UNCW played…
With those combinations, we were able to get more paint touches. When we got there, we didn't necessarily make the decisions that I wanted us to, but we got more paint touches, we were way more aggressive in touching the paint and trying to create some type of offensive for ourselves. Just got to continue to get better at making the right reads and simple plays for each other. A couple of those lineups gave us that look of getting into the paint a little bit more.
On whether decisions or shot selection need more improvement…
The decisions. I think our shot selection has cleaned up. Just the decision to make the right pass at the right time and not the second too late. I think, like I said, our shot selection has improved which, I like that; they will start falling, and I’m very confident in that.
On potential tweaks…
It’s just one of those things for me as a coach, I’ve got to go back and maybe take a look at our practices and see if we need to lighten up a little bit more – fine-tune some things, tweak a couple of things. I believe in these guys at a high level, and I know we’re going to start making shots.
We’re going to tweak a couple of things — how we’re doing things — but we’re not going to try to reinvent the wheel. We’re going to do what we do at a higher level. I want to try to make them a little bit more fresh going into games, so that’ll be one thing we do in practice.
On his message to the team right now…
Keep believing and staying confident in what we’re doing. It’s one of those things where we’ve got to believe; keep believing and stay connected with each other and fight through this little bit of adversity that we’re in right now. It’s basketball, OK, and that’s what the season is going to be. It’s going to be adversity, highs and lows all through the season; we just have to respond to it the right way.
On whether this schedule is what they wanted…
We’re getting everything that we wanted out of this schedule. Make it tough, because we know how tough it is to win in league play, to win on the road, all of those things. We’re getting everything that we wanted to get out of this nonconference schedule.
On Jaylen Sims at PG…
He’s doing a really good job of getting us into our offense and he’s doing a better job of making the right read more times than not. He’s being very vocal, being a leader for us. He’s getting more comfortable. I just talked to him not too long about some of the other guys and some of the other roles they’re playing, and it takes a while for you to get used to a new role.
When the coach tells you, ‘Hey, this is not who you are. I Want you to get back to who you are and do this,’ it takes them some time and get comfortable and start doing it at a high level. He’s doing a really good job, Shykeim is doing a really good job in his new role – they’ve just got to get more comfortable with it.
On being finished with exams…
I’m sure that plays a factor into everything, especially with today’s kids. They overanalyze and overthink everything, and if you can take one more thing off their plate, I think the better off they’ll be. I think it does play a factor in it, and I hope that will help us out.
Player of the Week - Jaylen Sims
He’s doing a good job and trying to bring the guys together and keeping everybody connected as we will be now and moving forward, and forever. He’s doing a really good job in the leadership department for us; I can’t say enough good things about him.
On whether they have a winning mentality…
I think the winning mentality is there. Obviously … eight games into it, it’s not automatically going to just start clicking. There will be bumps in the road, there will be bumps in the road moving forward; it’s how we handle those bumps.
This thing is not something that’s going to happen overnight. It’s something that we have to keep working at, keep believing in and it’s going to click, it’s going to start working at a consistency level for us.
My main message with the guys – I sent them a long text yesterday and I’ll talk to them today – just fight through adversity and stay connected through (this) and having a belief in our process and what we’re doing, and never getting too high or getting too low. It’s easy, like I said before, when things aren’t going like you want them to, it’s easy to start overthinking and to start panicking. There’s no need to panic; we’re only eight games in and we’ve got a lot of basketball left and a lot of winning to do.
On this team’s leadership and leaning on veterans…
This is a unique group because they’re really together which I think is a special, special quality of this group. They talked and they have conversations and they’re making sure that they’re holding themselves accountable as well, trying to keep everything intact and I think they’re doing a really good job of it.
James (Baker Jr.) is somebody that I look at, somebody that I really respect because he’s done it before, and he’s been really good for our guys. He’s in a different role right now; he’s playing a bigger role for us than he played at his last stop. He’s off-and-on right now, he’s trying to find a consistent level of play. I am talking to those guys, but I’m trying to help them in a lot of ways to get to the level of playing that they need to be playing at, so they’re leaning on me as well.
He does a really good job of staying even-keeled. James is one of those guys where he’s going to do whatever it takes; whatever we need him to do to win. He stays right there in that middle ground and when he needs to turn it up, he will, and when he needs to calm everything down, he will. He’s been a tremendous leader for our unit.
On Mount Olive…
Any time you play teams like this, our message to the guys is going to be ‘Their Super Bowl,’ so you get their best punch. A bunch of smaller guys; scrappy, tough. They’re going to fly around and make it a challenge for us. They play a lot like us with pressing and getting out in passing lanes in the halfcourt, so it’ll be a challenge for us, keeping the basketball in front, limiting their paint touches and ratting out some of those long rebounds, getting 50/50 balls. It’s going to be a very challenging game for us, and a game that I’m looking forward to getting our offensive mojo going and getting us playing at the level we need to be playing at.
On what he wants to see Wednesday…
We talk about it; we talk about the improvement we’ve made with our selection and to continue to step in and shoot with confidence. I’m going to try a little something different and cut practice time down a little bit and hopefully that’ll work out for us. We’re getting tons of shots up in individual workouts, getting them up in practice. I like the looks we’re getting; I’m very confident they’ll start falling.