UNCW Outworks Charleston for Season Sweep
The Seahawks dominated on 50/50 balls, offensive rebounds
UNCW 80, Charleston 74
Box Score | Siddle Postgame | Kelsey Postgame
If you’ve listened to Takayo Siddle over the years, there’s a philosophy he leans on when offense isn’t coming easily for his team or one of the guys individually: focus on the things you can control, like energy, defensive effort, toughness, and pursuing loose balls.
It seems that message was received after Saturday’s debacle, as UNCW showed up ready for a brawl on Thursday night, out-hustling Charleston for 40 minutes en route to an 80-74 victory at TD Arena.
Trazarien White scored 25 points and grabbed 9 rebounds to lead four double-figure scorers for the Seahawks, as Shykeim Phillips added 15 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists and Nolan Hodge chipped in 11 points.
Donovan Newby, mired for weeks in the worst shooting slump of his career, came up with several big buckets late, scoring all 11 of his points in the second half to help UNCW win for the 7th time in 10 meetings with the Cougars.
Here’s what we learned as the Seahawks swept the regular-season series.
Double Down on The Work
During his pregame chat with radio play-by-play man Mike Vaccaro, Siddle skipped the X’s and O’s when asked about the key to the game.
This one, he said, was all about outcompeting the Cougars on their home floor.
A quick indicator of the intensity? Three held balls in the first 7 minutes, 30 seconds of the game, which served as a nice complement to the number of bodies hitting the floor for loose balls and jumping into all-out scrums in the paint.
As the game progressed, the tides of a fairly even matchup turned UNCW’s direction in a big way, as the ball seemed to keep finding the hardest-playing Seahawks on the floor every time it went up for grabs.
“When you go back and look at the stats that don’t show up on the stat sheet, we had 14 50/50 balls to their nine,” Siddle said.
UNCW often wins the 50/50 battle, but even more impressive, the Seahawks beat the Cougars at their own game on the boards, using a 16-14 offensive rebounding edge to fuel a 15-10 advantage on second-chance points.
Siddle chalked that up to a singular focus for Khamari McGriff (six offensive rebounds of nine total), White (five offensive rebounds of nine total).
“The words that we used all week were ‘focus’ and ‘poise’, and we did that at a high level,” he said. “We were flying all over the place; I thought our focus and our poise was at a high level.”
It was an unusual position for Charleston, which ranks 44th nationally in offensive rebounding rate and 101st on the defensive boards — clearly something that irked Coach Pat Kelsey.
“We pride ourselves on being a very, very good rebounding team and we are,” he said. “Very few times has someone outrebounded us like that and that’s disappointing to me. Give them credit; that’s a hustle statistic, a tenacity stat, a toughness stat.”
With this victory, UNCW is now 11-2 in games immediately following a CAA loss since the start of the 2021-22 season.
No Help
After the Seahawks suffered two heartbreakers and one embarrassment at the hands of Charleston last season, they’ve imposed their will in two meetings this season, slowing the game down and making the Cougars earn every bucket.
Against the other seven CAA opponents Charleston has played this season, they’ve averaged 12.9 points off turnovers and 8.3 points on the fastbreak.
In two games vs. UNCW? A total of six points off turnovers, and six points on the break — completely absurd numbers against a team that plays its best at top speed.
The Seahawks did them a favor with six turnovers in the first half, but largely, the Cougars couldn’t capitalize.
“Our turnovers in the first half, they were unforced errors — fumbling passes, stepping on the sideline, over-driving,” Siddle said. “What we told them in the locker room was, ‘Let’s not beat ourselves.’ They had 37 points, and I felt like 60 to 70 percent of them were because of us, just our awareness and readiness.”
UNCW responded by turning the ball over just once in the second half — a White charge that would have had the actor cut from auditions for a Lifetime movie.
Februarewby
Still workshopping the name, but the point remains: Newby plays his best ball in February, and he made sure to get started on the first day of the month.
After missing his first three attempts on Thursday night, Newby knocked down three jumpers over a 3-minute period that saw the Seahawks hang around at a time Charleston could have gained some separation.
With 7:25 remaining, Newby hit his biggest shot of the night — a high-arching, go-ahead 3-pointer from the top of the key to give the Seahawks their biggest lead of the night.
Coming into the game, Newby had struggled through conference play, averaging 5.9 points and 1.5 rebounds while shooting 14 of 48 (29.2%) from the field, including 6 of 33 (18.2 percent) from 3-point range.
Even when he missed those early shots on Thursday night, it was clear he was playing with the energy and toughness Siddle wanted to see. Here’s what the coahc had to say:
That was great. As a coach, and I love all my guys, I told them in the locker room when you really have a love for your group, you have different relationships with all the guys — we all know that — but I believe in Donovan, I trust him, I love him. He’s been through a lot in this program.
As a coach, when you’re trying to get one of your players — one of your sons, one of you brothers, whatever you want to call it — when you’re trying to get him out of a funk, you’re trying everything to the point where I just kind of stepped back and let him figure it out over the last couple of weeks. To see him get out of that little rut he was in and play so well and impact the game like he did, man, I’m so proud of him.
Home at Last
Thursday night’s win wraps up the most difficult portion of the schedule, which lasted from Nov. 6 up until today, as the Seahawks have played a total of six home games, including four in the past 80 days.
On top of the crazy nonconference schedule, UNCW spent six of its first nine CAA games on the road, contributing to what has been the toughest-ranked conference schedule at the halfway point.
“I’m just trying to figure out the formula, how we got stuck on the road six out of the first nine games in conference play and only played three homes game,” Siddle said. “I’m trying to figure out that formula, but you know, we never made an excuse.”
The Seahawks return home to meet old friend and new conference foe Campbel on Saturday night.
UNCW has played a total of six home games this season, including four over the past 80 days.
Finally, the Hawks are catching a break with the schedule with only three road games remaining at Hampton (KenPom No. 348), William & Mary (325) and Campbell (315).
The six home games are spilt evenly, with Campbell, Drexel (110), N.C. A&T (335), Elon (319), Hofstra (148) and Towson (142) coming in.
We’ll never know how much of a factor the road grind was in a few of the uncharacteristic performances, but there’s no doubt those lessons are going to pay off in a big way over the next few weeks.
Around the CAA
Things got a heck of a lot more interesting with Monmouth’s win over Drexel, and as for both of the teams currently listed ahead of UNCW, both will be visiting Trask in the coming weeks.
Against Hofstra, Stony Brook picked up right where they left off vs. UNCW, hitting 12 3-pointers on its way to building a 13-point lead. And for the second time in a matter of weeks, the Seawolves couldn’t shut the door, as Tyler Thomas dropped in a wild shot as time expired to win the game.
Thursday’s CAA Results
Monmouth 67, Drexel 62
Hofstra 72, Stony Brook 71
Towson 83, Northeastern 76
N.C. A&T 59, Hampton 58
Delaware 81, William & Mary 53
Campbell 69, Elon 67
Saturday’s CAA Matchups
Charleston at William & Mary (2 p.m., Flo)
Monmouth at Delaware (2 p.m., Flo)
Elon at N.C. A&T (4 p.m., CBS Sports Network)
Towson at Hofstra, (6 p.m., CBS Sports Network)
Northeastern at Stony Brook, (6:30 p.m., Flo)
Campbell at UNCW, 7 p.m. (Flo/WECT)
HBCU Legacy Classic
Hampton vs. Howard, (4 p.m., TNT)