Asked about the motivational tactic after Monday’s 79-73 overtime victory, Siddle smiled, pointing out he wasn’t even sure if his players were looking at the signs.

“Did it work?” he asked Trazarien White, whose 21-point, 11-rebound performance had lifted the Seahawks into their 13th championship game appearance vs. Charleston on Tuesday night.

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“Yeah,” White said, grinning back at his coach. “The scores around the locker room just reminded us they embarrassed us. It was embarrassing; it just felt bad, and it motivated us, like, ‘We can’t get embarrassed.”

Don’t Look Away

If seeing the scores weren’t enough, the UNCW coaching staff laid it out as plainly as possible in their pregame film session.

Before getting into Hofstra’s personnel or sets, the Seahawks had to sit through a highlight film of all of the ways they were physically dominated in January.

“We wanted to show them how they tried to punk us — how they did punk us — in the first game that we played them,” Siddle said. “They were pushing us around, slamming us on the ground and we were reacting to it in a negative way, and it just completely took us out of it mentally, so we wanted to address that first and foremost.”

Siddle said he felt like the Seahawks only competed for 20-25 minutes in the first matchup, and even then, they weren’t nearly as physical as they needed to be.

That all set the stage for Monday’s win.

Weathering the Storm

For a moment on Monday, it appeared the Pride were going to pick up where they left off in January.

Despite some early opportunities, the Seahawks couldn’t get out of their own way — dribbling too deep, missing gimmes and committing three turnovers over the first 5:06 as Hofstra built a 28-16 lead.

But instead of wilting like last time, UNCW just got tougher and upped its level of physicality.

“We knew it would be tough. We knew it would take a next play mentality, we knew it would take a whole lot of belief,” Siddle said. “We never wavered, not one time, we had that look in our eyes, we had that next play mentality.”

Everyone had a hand in getting to the other side.

Nick Farrar scored seven straight points and Jamarii Thomas drew a foul on a 3-point attempt while Maleeck Harden-Hayes did a little of everything and Donovan Newby hit a couple of big shots.

When Hofstra’s lead was only one point at the half, it felt like UNCW had all the confidence in the world, having knocked a little mystique off the regular season champ.

Got a Kitchen Sink?

If Siddle had one of those, he probably would have thrown it at Aaron Estrada, too.

It feels a little funny to write about a stellar defensive effort on a guy who scored 25 points, but that’s how good Estrada, the CAA Player of the Year, has been this season.

Shykeim Phillips was the guy responsible for hounding him for most of the night, but the Seahawks clearly wanted to throw different looks at Estrada, using Harden-Hayes’ length to bother him, and tossing Thomas and Newby his way, too.

UNCW mixed in a few different fullcourt pressures that forced turnovers, and at one point, used a trapping zone in the halfcourt for a couple of possessions.

The variety and depth of the Seahawk pressure ultimately wore down Estrada, whose last bucket came at the 4:48 mark.

From there, he missed all five field goal attempts and had two turnovers at key moments.

Estrada hit 9 of 20 field goal attempts with six turnovers in 45 minutes, while second-team All-CAA guard Tyler Thomas finished with 14 points on 4 of 12 shooting.

Phillips’ performance was reminiscent of John Goldsberry leaving his heart and soul on the floor to slow down Northeastern’s Jose Juan Barea in 2006.

Siddle had this to say:

“You’ve got to give that kid a lot of credit. He’s been so much this year; he’s been sick, he’s been injured. He’s missed a lot of games, he hasn’t been able to get in a flow and a rhythm, and then on top of that, coming back as our leading returning scorer, having a humility and team-first mentality to come in and say, ‘OK,’ I’ll be the defensive stopper; I’ll guard their best perimeter player.

“He’s an unbelievable young man. he accepted that role, he accepted that challenge and I thought he did a tremendous job on Estrada.”

White was appreciative of Phillips’ grit, too.

“He’s an amazing teammate,” he said. “He only cares about one goal and that’s winning.”

Toughness by the Numbers

If you need any more persuasion on just how hard UNCW played, take a look at the boards, where the Hawks finished with a 43-31 advantage.

More importantly, they turned 14 offensive rebounds into 15 points, including a 11-0 advantage in the second half and overtime.

“That’s one of our things that we look at to see if we’re playing hard enough, to see if we’re going to the glass,” Siddle said.

Add in a 28-18 advantage on points in the paint, and you’ve got a pretty clear picture of a team intent on not getting punked again.

“They came out and had a great gameplan,” Hofstra coach Speedy Claxton said. “They were the tougher more physical team, and most of the time, the tougher team wins. They were the tougher team tonight, so they won the ballgame.”

Thank you, Portal

Monday night is exactly why the transfer portal is such a game-changer.

Rather than having to chance it with younger players who haven’t played much in March, UNCW got huge nights from Newby and Harden-Hayes, who joined the program after a few years elsewhere.

Newby, who played 43 minutes, finished with 17 points and 5 rebounds while knocking down all 7 of his free throw attempts. Beyond the numbers, he brought incredible grit and tough defense.

Harden-Hayes had 17 points and 7 rebounds in 40 minutes while taking his effort on the boards, defense and overall hustle to another level.

Both of those guys had great numbers, but no one on the floor was playing harder, either.