Charleston Awaits After UNCW Tops Elon
The Seahawks look to ride the momentum of a dominant second half
UNCW 75, Elon 58
The goal of any college hoops team is playing your best basketball in March, and Sunday night, the Seahawks delivered 20 minutes of their most dominant work of the season, running away from the Phoenix for a 75-58 victory in CAA Tournament quarterfinals.
Box Score | Photo Gallery | Press Conference with Siddle, Sims
Trazarien White was relentless, finishing with 15 points and 11 rebounds, while Jaylen Sims was his usual steady self with 16 points, six rebounds, four assists and just one turnovers.
A few quick takeaways from this one before we look forward to Monday night’s semifinal matchup vs. Charleston…
Flipping the Switch
Elon hit 7 of its first 13 field goal attempts en route to an 18-4 lead with 12:08 remaining in the first half, while UNCW was 1 of 10 from the field.
The Seahawks blew a couple of defensive assignments, missed a couple good looks and had trouble breaking through the compact Phoenix defense.
Still, it was clear UNCW had much better movement — player and ball — than the previous meeting on Feb. 4. Of those first 10 shots, seven were 2-point attempts, meaning the Hawks weren’t getting frustrated and jacking up bad 3-point attempts.
“I think we had to shake the cobwebs out a little bit,” Coach Takayo Siddle said. “New team, new group together, another part of our journey and they responded the right way.”
As the Seahawks settled in, they tightened up their defensive communication and didn’t give Elon nearly as many good looks. Offensively, UNCW used a weave on the perimeter to keep things moving and made it a priority to touch the lane on every possession.
The improved movement got guys like Sims, Shykeim Phillips and Mike Okauru the ball in position and ready to attack, rather than simply trying to break down their defender off the bounce.
Here’s a good example of UNCW’s guards getting a feel for the Elon defense, and using it against itself.
Okauru waves Sims down the lane, and understanding where Okauru is going, Sims knows the soft spot will be in the short corner/edge of the lane. Having gotten a feel for how Elon is rotating its defense, Sims realizes that while he’s got a good option to hit Amari Kelly with a quick pass, he’s got a better one with Jamahri Harvey for a wide-open three.
After the Seahawks got over their slow start, they hit 27 of 48 attempts from the field, including 7 of 15 from 3-point range and finished with 1.29 points per possession.
It was beautiful offensive basketball and a credit to assistant coach Travis Hackert for making great adjustments and putting UNCW in possession to succeed after an uncharacteristic, stagnant performance vs. Elon just a month ago.
Even when things looked like they might be headed for a repeat of that game, the Seahawks only tightened up in their approach and outscored Elon 36-16 in the paint — a major contrast to the Phoenix’s 44-16 advantage on Feb. 3.
The victory was UNCW’s 11th double-digit comeback of the season, which according to the CAA, leads all of college basketball.
“We’re just a resilient team,” Sims said. “We knew we were going to win that game. we’ve been doing that all year, honestly. I don’t know why we get down early, but we stay together, that’s our testament to our culture as a team, in those moments we don’t fold; instead, we keep going and we knew we were going to win the game the whole time.”
Winning Time White
The Seahawks aren’t going to lose with this version of White in the lineup, because what he brings in both production and emotion, takes this team to a different level.
After hitting the freshman wall midseason and recalibrating his approach, White has not only gotten back to being the player he was early in the season, but becoming even more relentless on the boards and better at creating second-chance buckets for UNCW.
Sunday night’s 15-point, 11-rebound performance gave him his third double-double of the season, which have all occurred in the past four games.
White’s strength and athleticism are a matchup problem, and when he’s playing with energy, he’s impossible to keep off the boards. There are no bigger momentum swings than seemingly getting a stop, only to have White swoop in and grab the rebound and score on a follow.
Over two matchups with Charleston this season, White totaled nine points and six rebounds. Given his recent play, it’s possible he’ll exceed those numbers on Monday night. If so, the Seahawks would be in pretty good shape.
CAA SEMIFINALS
UNCW (22-8) vs. Charleston (17-14), 8:30 p.m.
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Thanks to a shocking 92-76 victory over Hofstra on Sunday night, it’ll be the Cougars meeting the Seahawks in the CAA Tournament yet again.
A few notes on the mathcup…
Regular-Season Series
Jan. 17: UNCW 86, Charleston 78
Feb. 12: UNCW 85, Charleston 79
Bet on a UNCW 84-80 victory and send 10 percent of your winnings.
Two hard-fought games that could have gone either way, as Meeks gave Charleston a chance to win both, averaging 24 points and six rebounds vs. UNCW this season.
Ultimately, the Seahawks came out 2-0 because they forced the Cougs into 17- and 18-turnover performances, while UNCW got to the free throw line a total of 56 times over the two games by relentlessly attacking the paint.
Sims had 24 points in the victory in Charleston, then put up 27 in the win at Trask. Meanwhile, James Baker Jr. had the best offensive game of his college career vs. the Cougars, scoring 23 points on 9 of 11 shooting.
Tuesday’s Keys
On Sunday night, Siddle pointed out that they keyed in on stopping Elon’s Darius Burford, who had burned the Seahawks this season. Because of his strong tendency to drive to the right, they played him extremely hard to the left. Expect a similar focus on Meeks, who has hurt UNCW all over the floor.
Charleston coughed the ball up 17.5 times per game against the Seahawks with regular rest and preparation. Now, on a back-to-back with hours to prepare, UNCW will look to take advantage of those tired legs.
This is going to be an offensive slugfest between two teams capable of putting up some big runs. That makes the rebounding battle so much more important for the Seahawks to limit the Cougars’ chances by closing out possessions and creating more of their own. UNCW had just two offensive boards in the second meeting.
It’s not a coincidence UNCW has two of its better offensive performances of the season vs. Charleston, given the Hawks had 26 assists on 47 field goals.
UNCW is 3-0 vs. Charleston in the CAA Tournament, winning semifinal games in 2015 and 2016, before taking the 2017 championship over the Cougars in their own backyard at the North Charleston Coliseum.