Talkin' to Takayo: A two-win week, improving offense, overcoming adversity and more
The UNCW coach discussed a two-win week and looked ahead to Campbell
For the first time this season, Takayo Siddle had the opportunity to talk about a 2-0 week on his radio show.
Coming off encouraging victories over Mount Olive and High Point, Siddle joined play-by-play man Mike Vaccaro on Monday afternoon to take a look back at how the Seahawks pulled off a gritty win over the Panthers, what’s helped Trazarien White take his game to the next level and why the offense took a step forward.
Here’s are the highlights of what the second-year UNCW head coach had to say ahead of the Seahawks’ final nonconference game, set for Wednesday afternoon when Campbell visits Trask Coliseum.
On the turning-point timeout vs. Mount Olive…
I didn’t overreact. I thought we were playing pretty good; we were scoring some baskets, but I thought they were driving us a little bit too much, we were a little bit too spread out. The offensive rebounds, we cleaned that up right away. It’s one of those things, Mike, where I think we were still kind of shell-shocked from what happened on Saturday.
Then, as we got a feel for the game, we started to get more comfortable. Then, we started to play like we’re capable of.
What was the focus for the game vs. Mount Olive?
Going into the game, we wanted to get back to being who we are, so we put a heavy emphasis on pushing the ball on makes and misses, off turnovers. In all three of those phases, I thought we did a really good job.
My main message was to be imposing; be imposing on the offensive backboards, be imposing trying to drive the basketball and trying to post it, because I think that’s going to help our offense out. We spent a lot of time working on that throughout the week, and I thought we did a really good job of driving the basketball, posting the basketball and then playing inside-out, which created some really clean looks for us on the perimeter.
Does the defense forcing turnovers help the offense?
It does – layups, free throws, lob dunks – all of those things help your offense out, especially when you’re struggling to shoot from behind the arc like we have been, but it also creates a mentality of being super aggressive and it puts so much pressure on the opposing team. Then, things start opening up on the perimeter and you build your confidence by taking those clean looks and knocking them down. Overall, I think playing inside-out has to be what we’re about.
What did the win over UMO do for the offense?
Their confidence went up; their confidence is at a high level right now. Leading into that game, I charted our field goal percentage throughout practice, and we shot the heck out of the ball leading up to the game. I felt like if we got clean looks, we would knock them down.
I think our guys are really confident right now, and I’ve got a challenge in front of me right now to keep them hungry, keep them humble and to want a little bit more. That’ll be my message with them leading into this game on Wednesday.
What’s behind Trazarien White’s recent success?
The one thing that I told somebody earlier is his practice habits have improved, so it’s giving him more confidence in the games. He’s practicing at the same level you see him playing at, and that’s the challenge for him, to continue to build his practice habits up.
Obviously, on the court, he’s an energy guy but he’s an unbelievably talented young man on the offensive end of the court. He is. He’s going to be a big-time scorer for us at UNCW over his career; can shoot the three, can really put on the ground and get to the rim and finish, really good on the offensive glass, really good in transition. So, that’s what he did, he used his motor and created some easy baskets for him and started taking his 3-pointers, and he ended up with 21 points. I love what he’s doing right now; I have to keep him hungry and keep him wanting more.
How much did White’s junior college season help?
I think it helped him out because at his junior college, playing against older and more physical guys, he was the man on that team. He kind of carried that team, the offensive load, he was a leader on that team. Coming over here, it took him a while to get going, it took him a while to get used to physicality and the speed of the game, but once he started getting in the flow of it, he started doing what you see him doing right now, and he’s playing at a high level. We’ve got to clean up a few things with him defensively, but I love what he’s doing overall.
Is James Baker Jr. getting a grasp on his role?
I think the key word you just said is role. I think he’s understanding that a little bit more – we need him to do a little bit of everything, whether that’s scoring on the post, on the perimeter, defending pick and rolls, defending on the post – I’m asking him to do a lot and he’s starting to get more comfortable with that, and he’s starting to play a lot better. He’s very similar to Trazarien in the fact that he’s a junkyard dog, kind of an energy guy … he’s always done that, and everything else is starting to fall in place for him.
Is Baker’s role different here vs. Morehead State?
His offensive role here is way bigger; he was more of a defensive stopper. He defended the other team’s best player, he did all of the dirty work for them. That’s what kept him on the floor for Morehead State, and now, I’m asking him to do that and add his offense to his play and it’s starting to come to fruition right now. He’s playing better offensively; he’s finding his spots and he can see where he can score the basketball and make an impact on the game on that end of the floor. I think that’s the biggest thing.
On the key to Mike Okauru’s success and consistency…
It all starts with Mike’s energy and his effort. He plays really, really hard. Sometimes, he does some crazy things out there, but he plays so hard that he covers it up with his effort – he covers his mistakes up with his effort – and I love what he’s doing. If he doesn’t have his energy and effort, he struggles, but when he plays with a high level of energy and effort, everything seems to fall in to place for him. I love what he’s doing right now.
Are you seeing these guys, as a team, collectively mature? Are you seeing everybody kind of feel out their role?
Most of the guys are starting to buy into how they can impact winning for us. There’s a couple of guys that need to embrace it a little bit more, but for the most part, our main guys are doing what they’re supposed to be doing.
On having depth over a dominant scorer…
That’s the one thing I always talk about with them and you guys: the strength of our team is our depth. I don’t necessarily know if we’ll have a superstar, and I’m OK with that; I don’t necessarily want a superstar. I do have eight or nine guys that are top three, top four at their positions, and I’d rather have that than a superstar. I think our team is starting to come together and all eight or nine guys can help contribute to us winning a game.
Was John-Michael Wright the focus going into the HPU game?
He was, and obviously with Coach Tubby Smith, they were well-coached, they were tough, they were physical, so going into the game, we knew we were going to have our hands full. Outside of John-Michael Wright, (Zach) Austin was really good and then No. 2 (Jaden House), the other guard, was really good and they had some really good role players to blend in with those guys. So, we knew those top three guys, we would have to try to keep them in check and make them have tough nights.
And for the most part, we did that with everybody but John-Michael Wright, but he’s a guy, he’s just going to get his shots up and he’s going to make a lot of them; you’ve just got to hope he takes a lot of them to get his average. I thought Mike did a really good job on him; I thought other guys who guarded him did a really good job on him and made it tough for him.
It was one of those situations where, going into the game, we knew we were going to have our hands full so we wanted to focus on what we could do, more than anything, to attack them on both ends of the floor, and I thought for the most part, our guys did a really good job.
What was the gameplan for UNCW?
We wanted to be very disruptive but disciplined at the same time and not overextend. I thought we did a really good job of pushing them out towards halfcourt with our denials, playing off certain guys. We kind of jumbled their offense up a little bit because we were helping off a couple of guys on their team and clogging driving lanes and they were a little out of sync. I thought oru guys did a really good job of getting deflections and it led to some runouts for us to get out in transition and do what we do.
On the conversation in timeouts late vs. HPU…
What we had been going through, up until the game. The adversities that we faced, I told them we were going to face some adversity throughout the game, but we responded to it the right way. I just kept reminding them, ‘You’re built for it. We’ve been through so much adversity; handle it the right way, handle it together.’ The guys responded and finished out they game well.
On Shykeim Phillips taking over late at HPU…
When I made the position change, that’s why I made it — because he’s an elite scorer, OK, he can really score the basketball; that’s what he’s most comfortable doing.
I saw that they were trying to switch with their five-man when we set our flat screens in the middle of the court, so we were trying to get the mismatch. You know as well as I do, it’s not about the plays you draw up; you’ve got to have the dudes that can go make the plays.
For him, he’s better in space, so when we got the switch, we wanted to clear out and just let him make a play out in the middle of the floor, and he took us home.
On Phillips fouling out and Jaylen Sims finishing…
He wasn’t out for very long, so I didn’t have much time to really think about it. I knew I was going to go back to Jaylen Sims.
I had sat him for a little while, and I talked to him about why. I told him to stay ready, and he came in for a couple of possessions and made some really good plays for us.
On the decision not to call timeout before Sims’ winner…
They were trying to scramble back in transition defense trying to get set, trying to get matched up. The floor was kind of broken a little bit, he had space, there was six seconds on the clock — I wanted to take the last shot.
We’ve drilled that in practice; they know when to go in situations like that. (Sims) made a good, quick move, he got to the paint — didn’t settle for a jumper — and finished with great confidence, and that was the ballgame.
Does your mindset or philosophy change if you’re down? Do you call a timeout or look at the same scenario?
Same; I want to let them go and if it kind of gets chaotic, I might call at timeout and draw something up on the side. I want to let them go, let them play, because I don’t want the defense to get set. If it gets jumbled up, I’ll probably call a timeout, but I’ll probably handle those situations the same all throughout the year.
On rebounding vs. HPU and beyond…
It’s one of those things where we have to keep growing in those areas; in that area in particular, gang rebounding. If we want to win like we talk about winning, you have to rebound and limit teams to one shot. I thought our guards, especially late, did a really good job of coming and rebounding down and helping our bigs out at ratting some of those rebounds out. Jamahri Harvey had a big one, Shykeim had a couple of big ones. I thought they did a really good job coming back and helping out.
Player of the Week – Trazarien White
Playing the right way. His habits are improving, both in practice and in the games. The main thing for him is just to keep on growing and to keep on embracing the process.
What has the team taken from the Jacksonville game?
More than anything, we just learned that the season is full of highs and lows and we’re learning how to deal with both.
I think the one lesson that those guys took from all of that is, ‘Don’t stop doing what you’re doing. Maybe you can do it a little bit better, but make sure you continue to stick with the process and keep your confidence and understand if you’re on a three-game losing streak, two-game losing streak, you’ve just got to do what you do a little bit better and not try to change anything.’”
So, battling through adversity, whether it’s on or off the court – I think those guys are starting to get it a little bit.
Are we moving toward more of a drive-and-kick offense?
We’ve always wanted to do that and maybe some of it had to do with how our offense was structured a little bit. I’m spacing the floor out a little bit more and setting more pick-and-rolls for the guys to play in space, and it’s making two guys get on the ball, so the kicks are there. We absolutely want to play inside-out; that’s always what we’ve been wanting to do.
On Phillips playing point guard vs. off the ball…
I’m not going to change his position back. He’s a natural scorer; I took him off the ball with that in mind, and he’s way more comfortable playing off the ball in a scoring role. When it comes late, that’s who I’m going to.
On Sims’ progress at point guard…
He’s been running the team well. He’s been running the team, getting us into our sets, keeping us organized on the offensive end and making the right plays. Defensively, I have to get him to improve with his ball-pressure and blocking out, things like that.
He’s growing every day – I love what he’s doing right now; we just have to continue to get him better.
How do you approach rebounding in practice?
Obviously, you look at your opponent and you see what their offensive rebounding percentage is and if that’s something they put an emphasis on, going to the glass. For us, I don’t necessarily drill it as much; we just put a heavy emphasis on it.
We show them tape of our missed block-outs, show them tape of the team going to the glass. We put an emphasis on it, and we penalize them in practice for it and they respond better to that than us going out and doing a million block-out drills, because most of them are not realistic.
With the offense progressing, do you talk about it or just let it keep going?
We’ll talk about it.
We’ll definitely praise them on some of the things they did well on the offensive end, and some of the things we didn’t do so well. We drove in — and I love how aggressive we were with driving the basketball — but we have to clean up our one-foot finishes, going off two feet more.
I thought we missed a couple of guys out on the perimeter because we were so locked-in at driving the basketball, we missed a couple of guys, so we’ll talk about that, but we also did a really good job of getting to the rim and finishing. We did a good job driving and kicking most of the time, so we’ll show them both and try to continue to grow on the offensive end.
We’ll go out to practice (Monday) and work on the same things we did leading up to the High Point game.
What’s led to Khadim Samb’s growing role?
He’s practiced well; practicing with the energy and focus that I need him to, and then when he had his opportunity against Mount Olive, he came out and he took advantage of it. The other night, I thought he gave us good minutes.
I’m looking for him or (Amari) Kelly to kind of take some ownership into those minutes to back up Baker, and I hope one of them can kind of take off with them.
I want to get my rotation shortened; I do. I want to play about eight guys, and nine if I have to, but it’s starting to get down to the nitty-gritty and I’m going to start really, really locking in and shortening these rotations and shorten my minutes down.
Have you talked to Amari Kelly about fouling?
We’ve talked about it; we’ve talked about being more play-ready versus trying to get ready when the action comes to you. I think that’s where he gets himself in trouble a lot, standing straight up, and then boom, he gets ducked-in or he’s trying to roll in the post and he’s straight-legged and the ball is coming to him and he reaches behind to try to get position, stuff like that we’ve talked about.
Just trying to be more play-ready; we have to clean that up with him. I absolutely want to keep him on the court for longer than what he’s been because he provides some rim protection for us and a skilled guy on the post. So, we’ll continue to try to clean that up for him.
On preparing for Campbell…
Defensively, they’re going to probably go under all of our screens, they’re probably going to pack the paint in, so we’re going to have to be able to make some shots. We’re going to have to be able to take our time to loosen them up, get to multiple sides of the court. We still want to play inside-out, but we’re going to have to take our time and our rhythm threes are going to be there, and we have to step up and make them.
On the flip-side, defending them is always a challenge because their player and ball movement is something like we haven’t seen all year. A lot of speed-cuts, a lot of backdoors. Their post player (Jesus Carralero) — who is really their point guard in that offense — is really good; really skilled. We’re going to have our hands full, and the main thing for us is we have to do a really good job defending them so we can get out and run, and that’s where we were able to have some success on them last year.
We were able to get some stops and get out and go.
Both teams are defending well, but is their style similar to Jacksonville’s?
Very different.
They’re not as physical as Jacksonville is, but they pack it in. They try to make you beat them over the top, and we’re going to have to really lock-in to our offensive game plan, and our shot-selection really has to be really on-point, because they’re one of the slowest tempo teams in the country.
So, bad shots and turnovers, they don’t help you out at all because possessions are limited when you play against Campbell.