Any other ending wouldn’t have done this team justice.
That’s what we told ourselves, anyway, as we watched the exhausted Seahawks fall into another double-digit hole on Wednesday night.
A 10-point deficit with more than 13 minutes remaining is merely a slight inconvenience for this group, right?
It was only Monday that UNCW set the bar for itself by somehow overcoming a 22-point margin against top-seeded Drake. Maybe it was the 18-point comeback against Drexel that made you believe this team was never dead. Rallying from down 15 against Hofstra was a pretty great night, and we’ll never forget Jaylen Sims’ buzzer-beater to complete a 13-point charge at James Madison.
Somehow, these Seahawks saved their most absurd for last.
It took two overtimes — forced by Sims’ free throws with 0.3 seconds remaining — 89 total free throws, four Seahawks lost to fouls and one gutsy play after another.
But when it was all said and done, UNCW was — somehow — left standing with a trophy to celebrate its improbable march to the CBI championship with a 96-90 victory over Middle Tennessee State.
“If you look at the game, that’s just our season right there,” UNCW coach Takayo Siddle said. “Our guys are so resilient and they fought so hard; they never gave up. They never (didn’t) believe we were going to win the game.
“We had some foul trouble and guys stepped up and that was a complete, total, team-effort. Very proud of the guys and what a way to go out.”
Often in college basketball, the end comes quickly and it comes with no mercy.
That’s something the Hawks (27-9) experienced 15 days ago, when a similar hard-fought, nip-and-tuck affair went Delaware’s way in the CAA championship game.
All season long, UNCW had won different versions of that game — until they didn’t, in the moment they could least afford to slip up.
For many casual college hoops fans, that game was the first and only time they’d see the Seahawks, meaning Twitter was flooded with idiots drawing the wrong conclusions about a team they’d seen for five minutes.
It certainly didn’t leave the right impression of a team that was defined by grinding out gritty wins, finishing 15-4 in games decided by six points or fewer.
For everything they’d done to restore UNCW basketball this season — the midseason turnaround, the 12-game winning streak and bringing Trask Coliseum back to life — this team deserved a better ending than the one they got, watching another team celebrate on the other end of the floor.
“I just put things in perspective for them, and told them that (loss) didn’t define our season, and that we’re still champions and a really good basketball team, and the opportunity in front of us was really a good one,” Siddle said.
That opportunity was a chance to play in the CBI, and in a rarity for college hoops, rewrite the ending to something that truly fit what this season has meant for the program.
Siddle wasn’t entirely sure what he’d get from the Seahawks in Daytona Beach, Fla., where they’d take the No. 9 seed in a 16-team field of similar mid-major programs.
“I didn’t know what it would look like coming in,” he said. “I can’t really tell with our guys, their mentality, their approach, but I had a feeling we were going to come in and fight.”
And boy did they ever.
“I’ve got to give them a lot of credit, because they were heartbroken as well, but we picked ourselves up and we came up here and we took care of business,” he said.
After a comfortable victory in the opener vs. VMI, the Seahawks were staring at the end on Monday afternoon when Drake took a 22-point lead in the second half.
UNCW had every reason to fold up the tent. Empty gym, middle of March in an event that isn’t the NCAA Tournament and things aren’t going well. Pack it in, catch a flight home and go hang out at Wrightsville Beach.
But in a moment representative of the character of these kids and the culture building in Siddle’s program, the Seahawks fought and scrapped until they somehow stole the game on a scrum under the basket.
It happened so methodically, that Drake looked like they didn’t even realize the Hawks had rallied.
That opened the door for two national television appearances on ESPN2 — an easy semifinal victory over Northern Colorado and the championship victory over MTSU.
That meant two chances for potential recruits and transfer portal players to get a look at the Seahawks, while departing seniors like Sims, Mike Okauru, James Baker Jr. and Jaylen Fornes all had more chances to put something on tape for their basketball futures.
“It does a lot for our program,” Siddle said. “We were able to get some exposure through ESPN, we were able to get some of our younger guys that didn’t play as much, we were able to get them some time and they stepped up in a major way. Then, for our older guys to go out as champions and get some more exposure as they get ready to turn pro, I thought it was huge.
“It does wonders for our program. It gives us a lot of momentum going into the offseason; hopefully it helps us in recruiting as well. It’s nothing but positives that came out of coming up here. What a great tournament, and a well-run tournament.”
Within hours of UNCW finishing off the victory, potential recruits had already taken notice.
Just after 11 p.m. on Wednesday, a Division I player who recently entered the transfer portal with several years of eligibility remaining had this to say: “Seeing UNCW on TV this time of year definitely opened my eyes up a little.”
We also spoke with another experienced big man that UNCW coaches have been in contact with via the transfer portal, and he was impressed after watching the Hawks’ semifinal victory.
“They looked good last night,” he said. “Sims is impressive and pretty much the whole team gets to the rim pretty well. They have some athletes, too.”
For those wondering why a program might play in one of the non-traditional postseason tournaments, there’s one big answer.
While most of the teams that UNCW recruits against are at home making phone calls, the Seahawks got to put on a two-night, five-hour infomercial showcasing their culture of toughness and a ball-screen offense that will be attractive to high-level athletes.
If you need another, just look at Jamarii Thomas.
The freshman sparkplug showed his potential in short bursts all season, but it wasn’t until this week that he saw extended minutes and offered a preview of the potential defensive havoc he can unleash with Shykeim Phillips next season.
“Probably for the past two, two-and-a-half months he’s really bought into his role, being an energy guy,” Siddle said. “He understands that he has a lot of work to do and he was just waiting his turn. While he was waiting, he was staying ready and he was getting extra work in with Coach Ponder and having a great attitude and being a total team guy and I knew coming up here, I wanted to play him and give him an opportunity, and man, was he special for those four games.”
It wasn’t that Thomas was playing poorly earlier in the season — he just happened to be behind a few guys that are going to make some money to play basketball next fall in Sims and Okauru.
We’ve written plenty about the legacy for those two, but it’s probably not nearly enough and we won’t fully understand it for a few more years.
Sims and Okauru came to Wilmington to help C.B. McGrath find his footing, and ended up playing for two more coaches in Rob Burke and Siddle.
They had every reason to get out of dodge, but instead, stuck around and fought even harder when the going got tough.
Now, they depart after having built the foundation for a program that looks primed to return to the NCAA Tournament and hang a couple of CAA championship banners in the next several years.
Some fans will say the CBI title isn’t a big deal, while others believe it’s a major accomplishment for the program. Sports fans ultimately rank and compare seasons and players and coaches and, well, anything you can rank and compare.
I don’t know if this is the best UNCW team ever or if it’s in the top five.
What I do know is that I’ll never love a team more than this one.
These dudes weren’t supposed to be playing past the first round of the CAA Tournament, and they damn sure weren’t supposed to split the regular-season title after a 15-3 run through the conference.
Underdogs in almost every game, they completely defied analytics, which never figured out what to make of a team that wasn’t great at anything other than winning.
Oh, and we’re pretty certain of something else, and we’ll allow Siddle to explain.
He felt like UNCW made a statement this week, loud and clear:
“We’re going to compete with toughness, we’re going to fight, we’re going to play to win, we’re going to play the right way. This is a big family, and I think the culture has changed, and I think now, when people see our name on the schedule, they won’t look at us and check us off as an automatic win. They know we’re going to fight and play to win, and compete really, really hard.
I think we caught the attention of a lot of people this year, and UNCW basketball is back.”
Great article!