Talkin' to Takayo: Recapping Fort Myers, Shy's Leadership and the Murray Miracle

Siddle sees value in adversity Seahawks experienced vs. App State

UNCW Athletics

With the Seahawks back from their Thanksgiving-week trip to Florida, UNCW coach Takayo Siddle returned for another edition of Talkin’ to Takayo on Monday afternoon.

Due to the travel schedule, it had been a few weeks, meaning he and Mike Vaccaro had plenty to discuss.

The show airs via Facebook Live on Mondays at Noon from Buffalo Wild Wings and gets a radio replay at 7 p.m. on 95.9 the Breeze.

Here are the highlights from their hour-long discussion, with the full video available here.

On bouncing back after some adversity in Fort Myers…

Yeah, I think we are experiencing a little bit of everything that comes with the season right now and I think we're handling it the right way with an experienced group. That's what I expect. We're five and one right now and we play some really good basketball, but we still have a long way to go.

On Shykeim Phillips’s big offensive performance vs. Columbia International, and the different facets of his game…

He’s best playmaker with the basketball in his hands and we trust him to make the right plays. He's really good in the pick and roll game; he has really gotten a lot better in making reads and that game in particular, you could tell he was just playing within himself. He wasn't forcing a lot with that, and with that, he was able to get his teammates involved and score a little bit on his own.

Aside from his offense, defensively, I think he's been tremendous. He hasn’t been fouling a lot. He's been really good in our press setting the tone defensively in the half court, so I couldn't be asking much more of him. 

How has Shykeim been able to avoid foul trouble this season?

He's just growing. He is just growing and maturing and he understands that he has to play more disciplined on that end of the floor, and especially early in games last year, you would see him get two quick fouls and we'd have to take him out and he knows that he brings a lot of value to our group when he's on the court, and so he's matured a lot and he's made his adjustments. 

On guys finding ways to contribute in ways other than scoring…

That's the big thing with this group.

It's easy for them to just think about scoring and thinking that the value that they bring is from the scoring column. That's not it for me. I always talk to 'em about impact and winning and other ways and trying to score and that's what's going to make us good guys just sacrificing and trying to do other things to help us win games. And a lot of our guys have really bought into it.

On this team’s depth and the opportunity to play well off the bench…

It’s who’s in the game at the end, and while they're in there, I just want them to really focus on their defensive energy and toughness and making sure that we're playing the right way, and everybody is going to play. How much? I don't know, but we have a team that's deep enough that everybody can get minutes.

They'll continue to earn their minutes in practice and in our games, but we do have a deep group that we can throw in so many different lineups, so many different rotations and I think just the strength of ours.

On his concerns with facing Murray State…

With their physicality. That was very concerning for me on both ends of the floor because offensively, they were very deliberate, and they knew where they wanted to get the ball. They were touching the paint, throwing it inside and they try to beat you up on the backboard. So that was a concern, and then on the other end, their physicality and pick and roll coverages and off-ball screening, trying to bully us off our cuts and things like that.

That was concerning for me, but I felt like we prepared the guys for it. When we got to the game, Mike, I was so frustrated with our guys because I felt like it was so much more out there for us to get, but we weren't playing our system. We weren't doing what we talked about and what we've been building up this whole time and that was frustrating for me. We started to do it at the very end of the game and it helped us out. 

On the final play of regulation vs. Murray State that drew the foul for Maleeck…

That's one of our late game plays that we practice it a lot. We try to fit it in as much as we can. We call it ‘Home Run.’ If you remember back to last year when we played William and Mary here on TV, we ran that exact same play and the same thing happened, but they did not call the foul.

And so going out of the timeout, we were talking to the referee about watching Maleeck getting pushed in the back and that's what happened. And he went to the line, it's crazy in that huddle, Coach (Kurt) Kanaskie was talking about we run a play called Righty on the free throw line just in case we need to miss. And Maleeck said, ‘No, no, no, no, I got this; We don't need to talk about that right now,’ and he went to the line and made two really big free throws.

On the first part of the play, when Shykeim drew contact from the defender…

He kind of flopped a little bit on it, but there was some contact, but they didn't call it. They didn't call it. So we executed the rest of the play. Don set a really good screen for Maleeck, and Maleeck got pushed in the back, and like I said, he made two huge free throws.

Everybody executed that play perfect. Noah, if he doesn't make a really good pass like he did, it was on the money. If we don't execute the screen, if the two guys that half court don't cross at the right time, it doesn't work. So, hats off to the guys for executing. 

On the value of playing a game like that early in the season…

I think it was 7:21, something like that, we were down, I want to say we were down 10 and I told the guys that you're not a good basketball team until you can come back from being in the hole that we were in until you can come back and win the game. And we showed a lot of resilience. 

Did you know you were 7-0 in overtime at UNCW?

I did not, I did not. That's pretty good, that’s pretty good.

I'd rather not go into overtime; I'd rather win in regulation, I won't have to stress for five extra minutes, but that's good. I mean our guys just stay locked in those overtime situations. You just kind of talk about all the running that you've done and how hard our practices are, and never blinking, and our guys, they stayed the course, and we were able to pull out a great win.

On how they defended Murray State’s final play in overtime to force a tough shot…

We did; we wanted to. We always put a guy underneath the rim and we felt like they would try to run something, getting their big guy going to the rim for a lob, so we switched it on the fly and put Maleeck, who's a bigger guy — we normally have one of our smaller guards right there.

We put Maleeck there and on the outside, we did a great job of switching, which the big man came off the screen. We were connected with him, so he didn't even cut to the rim, and we were able to push him out past three and it did look good from my angle, but he didn't have enough on it, and by the grace of God he missed.

On his concerns with App State’s size and physicality going into that game…

I was very concerned about their size, very concerned about their physicality, more concerned about, like I said previously about us playing our system and doing us well. We didn't do it for the majority of the Murray State game and luckily, we won that game and then going into this next one, if you watch it like we did, if you watch it back, you could see what happened. You could see it coming from a mile away.

We were just able to make some really tough threes in the first half to be up going in the halftime, but when you rewatch it, we did nothing right on either end of the floor. 

Not that you want to lose, but a little blessing in disguise, you think for you, as you were really able to latch on to this and have some learning lessons for your team?

No — these are, you don't — winning is great; winning is great.

Obviously, we all want to go undefeated, but adversity is going to come, it's going to come again. It comes in every game. Every team in the country's going to have to deal with some adversity throughout the season, for sur; it's how you respond to it.

And times like this, it was at the perfect time for us; we were feeling ourselves a little bit. Like I said, we weren't doing anything right, and in that Murray State game, we weren't doing anything right and we tried the same thing going into the next game and it did not work out for us, and we got our tail kicked and we needed to be humbled. We didn't show enough humility at all in that game, and we were able to really, really dial in and watch some film, give 'em some tough love, build them back up and I thought we responded the right way. 

Was the biggest progress the defensive effort you saw from App State to FGCU?

That was a tremendous effort from our guys. We were dialed-in, we played our system, we pressed fullcourt, it bothered them. We got in the halfcourt, we stayed disruptive by getting into the passing lanes so they couldn't run offense. They had to shoot over top or through us and we did a great job rebounding down and getting some of those 50-50 balls.

I thought we played our system 100 percent in that game and then I was able to tell the guys, ‘We have to stick to us — do us 100 percent — and if we lose by doing us then oh well, but I'm going to get really frustrated if we try to go off and do our own thing and we lose,’ and so I think we learned our lesson. 

On the held balls, bodies on the floor and effort sitting well with him…

It did. I always tell 'em, taking another step, we talk about swarming the basketball, pursuing the basketball and anticipating where it's going and having all five UNCW jerseys around it.

I think Noah Ross set the tone with that. I think Khamari McGriff set the tone with that early on in that game. Nolan Hodge, he set the tone when he came in. We were really scrappy and we did a really good job swarming the basketball in that game. 

On using the five-in, five-out substitutions vs. FGCU…

Just when it was about three minutes into the game and the starters, they were gassed, they were gassed out, I almost called timeout. That's what I wanted; I wanted them to empty the tank and then the next group came in and they had to play for a longer stretch because there weren't any stoppages in play.

So, they played for a longer stretch; they were gassed. I want them to really empty the tank every time they're in on every possession. I want them to empty the tank and then get some fresh guys in, and that's what we were able to do in the first half, and then early in the second half, we were able to do the same thing. 

On the satisfaction of seeing his players execute on the message after App State…

It speaks to their character. 

I believe in everything that I'm saying and everything that we're doing, OK, but if you have bad kids, it doesn't matter what you say, what you do, they're going to go out and they're always going to come back to their character at some point.

When things start to go wrong, their character's going to be revealed. We have good character in our locker room across the board, and so when I was talking to 'em, I could feel their energy; they were staring at me, they were locked in. They care about winning, they care about our success, and it all starts with my upperclassmen and my returners. They buy into everything that we're selling, and it bleeds down to the rest of the guys.

So, it felt good, it did feel good, but it's all about their character and those guys just being coachable and very good kids. 

After going 2-1 and dealing with some adversity, is it your hope that you can look back on this later in the season and see this is where the team solidified?

Yeah, I hope so. We were 2-1, but I felt like we were 3-0 because we experienced an ugly win, a really bad loss, and we handled, we experienced some adversity, and we responded the right way.

So, I felt like we were 3-0 — the record doesn't show that — but there was a lot of good in that trip. 

Player of the Week: Shykeim Phillips

He's earned the right to be in the position that he's in. He could have left when I took over the job, he could have left a year after that. He could have left at any point, could have left after this year and had other opportunities, but he's about as loyal as a young man as I've been around.

He's a pleasant person to be around, he's a pleasure for me to coach. He's one of my all-time favorites; a guy that never really has a bad day. He's obsessed with getting better and he's obsessed with winning, man. I can't say enough good things about him. In my opinion, he's the face of this program and what all of our young men should strive to be about. 

On Shykeim’s leadership…

He's grown so much, being more vocal. If you remember back to the Murray State game down the stretch, he was talking in our huddles after our huddles when they were walking out on the court. He was rallying the guys up and relaying the message that I was talking to the guys about.

He is always pulling those, the younger guys to the side, talking to 'em and showing them what to do, how to do it. Special young man he is. 

On having a guy like Shykeim step up into that role…

It is great. I've been around him for so long to see his development more so off the court, Mike, he started to really become strong in his faith and I think it's helped him out in a lot of ways.

He is more confident in himself and he's about as humble as of a guy that you're going to find. So, for him to have the success he's having right now is, I couldn't think of a better person for it to happen for him.

Are you seeing that growth from other guys on the team?

Yeah, Donovan Newby … I told him last week in the film room that I pointed out Shykeim a little bit and talked about his mindset, his humility, and I can see the same thing happening with Donovan, ‘Coach, what can I do to help the program? I just want to win.’

He's becoming strong in his faith as well, and I think Shykeim is really rubbing off on him, so Donovan will be a guy.

On having veterans, depth and guys that care about winning and winning for one another creating the recipe for a special season…

It's a long season ahead of us and that's why we try to take it day by day, but we do have some good qualities, some winning qualities.

Obviously staying healthy is important, but we have some really good qualities. It reminds me a lot of the teams that we had back in 2016, ‘17 when we won those championships. Just a bunch of guys that just want to win that are about the right things. I think we're a little deeper than those teams were, but this team, we have a chance.

On averaging 17 points in transition and his desire to push the ball…

There's so much more out there for us to go get. I don't know if you remember, I told ‘em, and you probably saw me in practice the other day, running up and down the court. I'm slow as heck. I know I am, but I'm like, ‘Dude, you got to get down the floor. Get down the floor in three seconds.’

But no, we emphasized playing fast, trying to get it out of the net quick and getting it off the backboard and pushing it, everybody running. So, our pace has picked up a lot, especially from last year, but we want to play fast; I think we can play a lot faster. It doesn't mean taking bad shots, but getting down the floor and pushing the pace a little bit. I see it, but I want more. 

On having continuity and a really good understanding of the system and one another helping transition offense…

It does help, and we do it a couple different ways.

I think with Shykeim, he's an athletic — not to say that Donovan isn't — but he's athletic, he's fast; he can push it off the dribble and get our pace where we want it. With Donovan, he's really good at upping the ball ahead, up across.

So, we emphasize that they know where to run. We just want to get tight to the sidelines and sprint all the way down the floor and make sure we have guys in the deep corners and the high and wide spots and the rim runner with our five-man.

They know where we're going and know we're looking for. We want early ball reversals; we want to attack quick off the catch. We've done a really good job with it, but it's so much more out there for us to get. 

This team has some great shooters, but is the better transition offense a part of the improved 3-point shooting?

It is, we’re able to get some early in transition. Transition defense is the hardest part of defense to play, it is. Guys tend to try to coast back defensively and with today's kids they struggle to communicate and get matched up.

So, we want to try to take advantage of that, and then when we get into half court trying to get multiple sides to the floor, we've been able to get three to four sides of the floor, and with that having a lot of player movement too, with random cutting. So that's opening it up.

Then we have Trazarien and Maleeck and Shykeim who can touch the paint, Nick, who can touch the paint and they've been doing a really good job of making the right play when they get there for the most part, and so I think that's why you see our shooting numbers go up.

On East Carolina and what it will take to win in Greenville…

Well, I haven't talked to the guys yet, but obviously it's a rivalry and so we have to make sure that we handle that the right way and not be emotional. We have to make sure that we handle it the right way.

Then we beat him last year; we put it on him pretty good last year here and he's going to talk about that, so we have to be ready for that part of the game, but once we get in the game, I think the toughest team will win.

They are physical, they do some things that concern me. They're going to try to drive us and make one-on-one plays and then crashed offensive glass. So we have to make sure we handle that well. And then defensively, they're going to try to beat us up a little bit. So, it's a very good team who's improved and they play really hard. They play the right way and they're well coached. So, we're going to have our hands full, but I think our guys, as we get to know them a little bit more, I think our guys will have a respect for them and make sure we take our preparation serious as we lead up to the game.

On ECU guard RJ Felton being an emphasis…

He is, because he can score from so many different ways. He impacts the game in other ways. He’s a hard-playing dude; he's got a big-time motor. He's aggressive, he can score it from all three levels. He's going to be a problem for us.

The main thing with him and I talked to the guys about this last year when we played them, is you have to exceed his physicality and his energy because he plays really, really hard. So, we're going to throw multiple guys at him, we're going to try to force him to take tough jump shots. We got to keep him out of the paint, keep him off the free throw line, but we're going to have our hands full, but it's going to be a total team defensive effort.