Talkin' to Takayo: Road Warriors, Sixth-Man Trazarien and Moving Forward
Here’s almost everything had to say during his Monday radio show.
A spirited group of fans awaited UNCW coach Takayo Siddle for his Monday radio show, still feeling the buzz of the victory at Kentucky — not unlike the group that awaited the team bus outside Trask on Saturday night.
As always, radio play-by-play voice Mike Vaccaro joined Siddle for the hour-long discussion, starting with Thursday night’s disappointing performance at East Carolina, how that helped prepare the Seahawks for the Wildcats, and trying to focus on the task at hand.
The full Talkin’ to Takayo episode is available via the UNCW Athletics Facebook Page, and you can catch future shows on Mondays at Noon at Buffalo Wild Wings.
Here’s almost everything Siddle had to say on Monday afternoon:
Where do you think your team is now? Is it where you expect them to be and where you want them to be right now?
Going into the summer, my mindset was to try to get as far as ahead as possible to get us ready for this nonconference slate that we had in front of us and I felt like we did a really good job of that, but then when we get into the season, things come up.
Different things come up, and I had to put myself in check and say, ‘Hey, look, this is a new team.’ We have some returners, but we added some pieces to this squad and we have to go through this non-conference and navigate through in our own way. It’s going to be a little different than previous years; we’re going to have to navigate through it and with the non-conference, lessons come up from every game like I always say, and we have to handle ’em different than we did in the past because this is a different group.
So, we’ve experienced a lot in this short season in eight games and I think it’s really starting to shape us a little bit, our identity starting to form … the guys are starting to see some results — some positive results — from just them being coachable and staying with the process and being even keeled throughout this whole nonconference, and we’re growing and that’s really all I can hope for right now.
How grueling has the schedule been with five straight on the road over two weeks?
It’s tough, Mike, but you know how we operate.
We try to just take it one day at a time and if you take it one day at a time, you won’t get so overwhelmed with what’s ahead and five road games. You try not to think about it like that and you try to put things in perspective for the kids as well and have them thinking the same way as you.
I know it’s been tough on them, but I think our whole program, when you look at our athletic trainer and our strength coach and Mike [Oblinger] for allowing us to travel the way that we did [charter flight] and we have everybody’s giving and helping our guys navigate through this rough stretch that we’ve been on.
Is there some upside in the amount of time you’ve spent together on the road?
Yeah, that’s the good part of it. It’s been really good for us with such short turnarounds and being together in the hotels and on the road, like you said, you don’t really have much time to feel sorry for yourself. You don’t have much time to dwell on what happened.
You have to stay with our process and part of our process is watching film. No matter what — win or lose — we get in the film room; we watch the good stuff, we clean up the bad stuff and we get ready for our next opponent, but within all of that, we’re focusing on our identity and focusing on us more than anything.
On how his players responded to taking some tough coaching after the ECU loss and heading into Kentucky…
I think it helps that they’re used to me, and they know exactly how I am; I’m pretty direct.
Everybody needed to take accountability for the other night. Even the coaches included — myself included — and it was a time for us to look in the mirror and say, ‘Hey, we went through this already. I thought we experienced this at App State? I thought we had moved on from this?’
But then I had to think about it; that was our first time being in a hostile environment like that together and when adversity hit us in that game, we didn’t respond the right way, but fast forward to Saturday, it prepared us for Saturday, and we handled it real well.
On his halftime message at ECU with the Seahawks leading despite poor 3-point shooting…
Well, the first thing I said was ‘There’s no way that we’re going to not make a three this half, so keep shooting.’ I thought we were taking really good shots. I thought we were tough enough. I thought we had the right energy about us to win that game.
Then we came out in the second half, and they went on the run. They went on the run, and we got a little soft. Their physicality started to wear down on us and then when the crowd got into it, we completely folded, and we didn’t handle it the right way.
Some of the play was out of character. Was it difficult to get guys on track even during timeouts?
It was. I remember the one time out, the first time out I took, it was just some things going on; it was uncharacteristic.
Guys, they were kind of wide-eyed and they were steps slow, and they just couldn’t retain the things that we had worked on leading up to the game, and it was just uncharacteristic of some of the guys.
So, I went crazy in the huddle just to try to get ’em to lock in a little bit and just the crowd, the crowd and the atmosphere, it spooked us up a little bit and I was surprised by that.
Shykeim Phillips scored 20 points in his Greenville homecoming. What did you see from him?
He was really aggressive, Mike, that’s who he is by nature … I thought he competed and played his heart out.
Like I told him after the game, the really good players, they make everybody else better around them. I thought he did that in spurts, but I thought that he was so tunnel-vision and zoned-in — and he made some good plays from doing that — but I would’ve liked to have seen him make more plays for his teammates.
UNCW was 3 of 23 from 3-point range. What did you see there? Just a tough night?
Yeah, we had great looks, great looks. We just couldn’t throw one in the ocean.
On the Seahawks having just six turnovers in Greenville…
I thought we did a good job of making sure we took quality shots. Ball security, going into the game was one of our big keys, but I thought we did a really good job playing inside-out.
If you look at it, we make those shots, we probably (get) 16 assist, six turnovers. I thought we took really good shots; I thought we had really quality possessions on offense outside of a few possessions.
It was a very quiet bus ride to the airport, the flight to Kentucky as well. What was your message following this game in the locker room and then leading up to Kentucky, your continued message to these kids?
Well, I had to take a deep breath. I was disappointed, frustrated a little bit, but I had to kind of put things into perspective.
This nonconference is for us to grow as a group, and I understand it a little bit better than they do because I’ve been through it a bunch, but it’s ups and downs in the non-conference.
It’s ups and downs throughout the whole season, but this nonconference is a perfect time for us to really put things in perspective for our guys. So just wanted to let them know we weren’t ourselves for the majority of that game and this game in particular, adversity came at us, and we didn’t handle it the right way. The crowd got into it, we got out of character, we divvied away from our system and next time it comes up because it’s going to come up here soon, we need to handle it better.
So, the next day going into film, we watched it as you know and gave ’em some tough love and showed them exactly what I was talking about, and I could tell they were dialed-in, and it helped. I think it helped.
Last season, guys were taking photos and starstruck a bit going to North Carolina. This year, you made a point of talking to them about that, and it didn’t happen at Kentucky.
Yeah, it’s that Mike Tyson effect, right? His opponents, they were done before they even got in the ring because they knew that he could knock ’em out with one punch.
For us, I didn’t want us to get starstruck, I didn’t want us to get beat before the game started being enamored with all the banners and all the bells and whistles of Rupp. I didn’t want us to get beat before the game started, so I wanted to set the tone and let them know we were coming there to win the game; we’re not just coming here to collect a check and just play good.
We wanted to win the game and get better while winning the game. I think it was important that I set the tone before the game even started with that. I think the guys came in and they believed, and what a game that was.
What was the key to getting off to a good start against Kentucky?
Well, the first thing I told my coaches, I said, ‘We have to come out and get off to a good start. We can’t have an offensive possession to where we get a shot clock violation, and the crowd starts erupting. We have to get off to a good start.’
We always talk about hitting first, and I think the way we scripted our plays to help them be in a position of where they could have some success, I think that helped. But we came out with that mentality that we belonged on the court. Our upperclassmen did a really good job of setting the tone and setting the table for that as we went out and I thought our guys came out, we were swinging first, we were hitting first and we ever really looked back.
On hitting eight 3-pointers in the first half vs. Kentucky to set the tone…
It did. I looked at Kurt (Kanaskie), I said, ‘Maybe we saved our threes for tonight.’
But we’re a good shooting team — we are — and if we can continue to take quality shots and make sure that we’re playing off the paint touches and getting rhythm shots, we’ll continue to shoot the basketball well.
After going up by as many as 14 and leading by eight at the half, you know that a run is coming. How’d you manage it from that point?
“Well, I always try to tell them, ‘Adversity’s going to come in the game and we need to be ready for it and we don’t need to blink.’
So, when the crowd started getting into it and they wanted to run, I wanted to call time out and calm everything down and I wanted to come back out and try to be aggressive with a paint touch, and we were able to do that. We were able to get, I want to say we got fouled around the rim and we were able to settle the crowd down a little bit and then the huddle, just telling our guys, ‘Just part of basketball, it’s part of a game. It’s ups and downs; let’s make sure we respond together,’ and I thought we did a really good job of it.
On the late-game performances of Trazarien White and Shykeim Phillips…
Well, if you look back at the East Carolina game, in my opinion, I thought those were the two guys that showed no fear; they were ready for that moment.
I just thought those guys, they’ve been with me for a long time, they’re fearless and they’ve closed games out for us multiple times throughout my tenure here.
Tray was playing really well throughout the game, and we felt like he could get around those guys and finish around the rim. So, we just wanted to open some double gaps for ’em and let him go to work, post them up a little bit.
Those are our two money guys in the clutch, and we want to make sure that we continue to put them in positions to where they can have some success.
Eric Van Der Heijden had a great game. Why was he the guy over Nick Farrar in this one?
I didn’t think he prepared the right way; I thought he was too cool. He didn’t have that look in his eyes, there was just a feel that I had. I know Eric has been waiting on his opportunity. He’s been preparing and being professional about the way he’s went about his business, and I just felt like, like he would give us a better look than Nick did, and he did some really good things in that game to help us win.
Aaron Bradshaw, a projected lottery pick, made his debut for Kentucky. Were you concerned about matching up?
Yeah, he’s talented. I mean, he’s a lottery pick, top-five, top-10 pick for sure.
But I knew that was his first game playing and I knew that they’re guard oriented, so I didn’t think they would try to pound the ball inside to him, and then him having to guard Eric out on the perimeter and the way we move our five men around, I thought that would give them some problems.
And Eric, he came in and he didn’t try to do too much, and that’s what I told him when I took him out, ‘Hey man, you’re being successful out there because you’re not out there hunting your offense, trying to do too much. You’re rebounding, you’re being tough enough, you’re communicating. Everything else will kind of fall in line.’
I thought that helped him out a lot. I think if he can continue with that mentality, just whatever we need him to do to help our team win, I think he’ll continue to work his way in the rotations.
Rebounds were even and UNCW won the second-chance points battle. What does that tell you about the job you guys were able to do against again, a taller maybe at some positions, more athletic Wildcat team?
Well, offensively for us, Coach Kanaskie wanted to send three guys back. In our system we always send three to the glass and two back, and so I slept on it and I’m like, ‘No, you know what? We’re going to do what we do. We’re going to do what we do and we’re going to go get some offensive rebounds,’ and we did that defensively.
We do it every day in practice, to where we work on rebounding down and gang rebounding, and we knew that would take that type of effort against the athleticism and size that Kentucky presented.
And our guys, if you look back at the gang, Shykeim came down and he had some big rebounds. KJ (Jenkins) had some big rebounds, Maleeck (Harden-Hayes) had some big rebounds and multiple guys came in and every time the ball was coming off the glass off the rim, we had five teal jerseys around it. That was good to see us grow in that area.
On UNCW’s experience proving useful against a young Kentucky team…
When I was at NC State and we used to play Duke, that was one of the things that we always talked about: they are good, they’re talented, but they’re young and inexperienced.
We felt like in this game in particular, that if we got them in a pressure moment, in pressure moments and situations, that we would be able to exploit their youth, and we absolutely did that.
Rare company to win at Rupp as a player as you did at Gardner-Webb when they were ranked 20th at the time back in 2007, and now as a coach. I asked you postgame which one had the better feeling, and you said coach.
As a coach, 100 percent.
For our fanbase that was special. We had so many people to travel to the game and I appreciate that, and I know our guys did. They helped us win the game just to see the smiles on their faces and what it could potentially do for our university with enrollment and the exposure that we were able to get, it was tremendous.
Then to see our guys so happy, that’s why I got into this coaching business: to help others and to see others succeed and to serve, and man, walking into that locker room and seeing the joy on our kids’ face and to see them celebrating with each other, that was a memory that I’ll never forget.
How many calls did you receive after that upset? How crazy was your phone going on Saturday night?
It was great. People I don’t even know, I don’t know how they got my number. I have no idea how they got my number, but I had about 350 text messages and a bunch of DMs and stuff on Instagram that I had to go through.
When I took this job, I asked Kevin Keatts, I said, ‘What did you do when you got all those congratulatory text messages? What did you do? Did you respond or you just leave them?’
He said, ‘No, I respond to every one of ’em,’ and so that’s something that I’ve always thought about, and so I took some time yesterday and I responded to everybody, so I appreciate it, I appreciate it. I really do.
What did John Calipari say to you? Did you have time to talk?
You know how after a loss, you don’t really have a lot to say, right? But he was just like, ‘Hey coach, great job. You have a really good team … enjoy it and take advantage of it. You guys are really good.’
I appreciate it; I’ve got a lot of respect for him. Obviously, he’s a hall of famer and has done an unbelievable job at every stop he’s been at. He’s a great coach and I’ve gotten to know him a little bit. He’s a really good person too, but we appreciate the opportunity for sure.
Is it good that you’ll have a week off to decompress before the next game?
I’m fine, Mike. I’m good. I’m happy that we won and I’m glad to see everybody else happy, but as a coach, when you win, it’s more of a relief.
I’m obviously excited about it and it’s fun to win, but it’s more of a relief for me because I instantly go into that mode of, ‘OK, now I have to get them guys back even keel and humble ’em a little bit, helped them understand that there’s a lot more work to do.’
So, that’s where my mind went to right away, but we’ll have all week to get that out of their system.
Trazarien White is the Player of the Week. What did you learn about him with his play this week, and what do you see in bringing him off the bench?
He’s a big-time player, I learned that. I already knew that, but to do it on the biggest stage that you possibly do it on, he really showed up.
More important than that, it takes a lot of humility and for you to be starting for a couple years and then your coach to bring you off the bench and you handled it the right way? It says a lot about his growth as a person, because if I’d have done that a year ago, I don’t know if he would’ve responded the same way, but he’s playing some really good basketball.
He’s still got a lot of growing to do for sure, but I’m proud of him. I’m very proud of him more off the court than I am on the court.
Will the five-in, five-out substitutions continue?
I mean, I’m not going to change it, especially after winning that game and I’m not going to change it right now.
I like (White) coming in with that second group. That second group probably can score the ball better than the first group, but with him, he’s able to be more of a leader with the second group.
He’s always been sort of a slow starter and it’s always taken him some time to get going. So, if he can continue to see the game a little bit, throw him in, 17-minute mark, 16-minute mark, and then start to mix ’em in with the first group a little bit. I think it’s been helping us in a lot of ways.
On trying to move forward to the next game while the school is pushing commemorative t-shirts for the Kentucky win…
I definitely understand it. I understand, and I’m glad that we were able to create that memory and I want everybody to enjoy it for as long as they want, but for me and the squad, we have to move on.
We understand what we want to accomplish this year, and so we have to move on today and get better and try to keep taking steps forward and try to get what we all know we’re capable of, and that’s winning the championship.
What is the status of Ahmard Harvey and when might he be able to return?
He went back to the doctor last week and he’s not on the scooter anymore. He’s still in the boot, but he’s progressing at the rate that we thought he would. He’ll probably be back at the end of the month, early January, probably our first home game in January, conference play. I would expect him to be back and I don’t know if he’ll be able to play or not, but that’s probably the timetable for him.
With you already playing 10 or 11 guys, where can he fit into the rotation?
I don’t know. As a coach, you don’t want to break your rhythm, especially if you’re doing well. So, I really don’t know. I really don’t know. I would hope to get him back in the fold, but if our rotations are sharp as I want ’em to be and guys are playing, well, I’m not going to try to break that up. So, I don’t know.
What does Matt Moore need to continue to do to develop and eventually, maybe not this year, but in the future, really become a player that can help this program?
Matt’s very talented; he’s got great size, as you can see. He’s talented, but the game is too fast for him right now.
What does he need to do? He needs to just continue to fall in love with the process and really pour himself into it in order for him to catch up because it’s unfortunate he came in with so many veterans and so many experienced guys that we don’t have time to slow down for him.
So, he’s got to pour into the process and keep getting better every day and understand that his best basketball is the head of him and just to put his head down and keep working.
On the need for experienced players at this level…
For us to take a bunch of freshmen right now and expect to win at the level that we want to win at, I don’t think taking a bunch of high school kids is the answer; that’s just my philosophy. But we want to try to stay older; we want to try to stay older because I think you win with older guys.
On potentially redshirting Matt Moore this season…
We’ve tossed that idea around. That’s one of those things where we’ll just kind of play the season out and see where we need to go with him. But yeah, that’s absolutely something that we’ve thought about.
With only one home game in December, what’s the message to fans?
Yeah, we need to sell the place out. We haven’t had a lot of home games so far and I know we’re 6-2 and coming off a huge win versus ranked opponent.
We need to sell the place out. I think our guys really deserve it and we’re going to get ’em ready to put on a show for you. So, please come out and support the guys. I think it’s important that we continue to show those guys love.