Talkin' to Takayo: Back Home, Injury Updates and Righting the Ship

UNCW will play two straight at home for the first time this season

The Seahawks are finally home, and with two games in Wilmington this weekend, Coach Takayo Siddle was back for his weekly radio show with play-by-play man Mike Vaccaro.

Monmouth’s visit to Trask on Thursday night marks the first Division I home game of the season, and only UNCW’s second home game since Nov. 14.

Here’s what Siddle had to say about how the Hawks finished the nonconference schedule and what they’ll look to tweak after a shaky start in conference play.

But first, we’ll start off with updates on Shykeim Phillips and Ahmard Harvey before diving into the rest of the show.

How is Shykeim’s hand/thumb after the fall at Drexel?

I think he was worried about it the whole trip. It had been bothering him for some time now, but he’s fine. We got the MRI results back and nothing fractured, nothing broken. He’s fine. He’ll be ready to go on Thursday. 

What is the status of Ahmard Harvey?

Just kind of depends on him and how he feels; trying to work him in some type of shape right now and that’s uncomfortable for him. It’s making his foot a little bit sore, which is normal.

So, whenever he feels confident and comfortable enough to come out and play and we feel good about what he can add and bring to our group without him hurting himself even more. So, it depends on how he feels. 

On finally returning to Trask on Thursday…

I think we all are excited to be home. I mean, it seems like we’ve been gone forever.

We played 14 games and we’ve had 11 on the road. It’s tough on our guys, mentally, physically, emotionally — I mean it is been tough on ’em — but we’ve navigated through it, we’ve stuck together. We haven’t wavered at all.

You mentioned that we are on a little skid right now, but we’ve been here over the last couple years and we’ve worked ourselves out of it together and it’s just the season, is what we’re dealing with. Every team goes through it, but how you respond to it is the most important thing. 

Is it easier to face something like this with a veteran group?

Yeah, I mean this morning was a whole, it was just making sure as their leader, I’ve been in this position a few times over the last three years we’ve been in this position.

If you look back at 2022, we were 3-5 and then we took off, and then last year, we started off 2-3′; we had just got our tail kicked by UConn, UNC and Oklahoma. Then we took off.

It’s the same thing this season — I’m not saying that we’re going to take off — I certainly hope so, but it’s just a season. Adversity comes to every program and how you respond to it is the most important thing.

This morning spent a lot of time with them, with the group, spent a lot of time with upperclassmen, spent a lot of time with ’em individually just to let them know that this is normal. We’re going to go 30-0? 36-0? I mean, yeah, we would all like that, but this is when it starts; we’re at our best when our back’s against the wall and you don’t realize who you are as a team, as a person until you experience adversity and respond the right way. So not flinching one bit.

What’d you see in the Marshall game from your team?

We were focused and that was my whole message leading up to the game is the most focused team, the team that wants to be there the most and that 40 minutes is going to have some success and have a chance to win the game.

I thought for 40 minutes, even leading up to it from our prep days, I thought we were completely locked in. I never had to address it. We were locked in for 40 minutes and we executed our game plan to the “T” and we pulled off a great win over a really good basketball team who’s kind of hot right now.

On the balanced scoring in the Marshall game, and that being the ideal…

We have so much firepower when everybody’s clicking all at once and we haven’t had that yet, I don’t think, but when multiple guys are clicking and we’re getting four or five guys in double figures and our system numbers are high, that’s when we’re at our best.

Right before break we were playing some really good basketball and we were really starting to shape up and we still are, in spurts — we just have to get back to it. 

That was a low-turnover game. How have you been able to do that?

Well, I think it’s a combination of a few things and that game in particular, they were switching 1-5, so it forced us to make more plays off the dribble and whether we were creating for ourselves or for our teammates, it didn’t put you in situations where teams were going to be scrambling and potential to get a pick-six still or whatnot.

They spread it out, we were able to drive them and make plays from the paint. But we do have some veteran guys that are physically mature and mentally mature enough to understand what good offense looks like and not turning the ball over is important to our success, so they understand that.

So having a veteran group and then our style of play the way we want to play where we touch the sides of the floor and everybody’s getting a touch on the basketball and we’re trying to play inside out. I think all of that plays a factor in taking care of the basketball. 

On the off-ball movement and ball movement vs. Marshall…

Right, and that’s a big part of what we do and when we get away from that, we really struggle having energy in our body.

It leads to having energy in the ball and when we’re standing around and being stubborn not to cut and stuff, that’s when we get ourselves in a lot of trouble, so we emphasize it a lot. We continue to work on it and hone-in on it, but I think the main part is just making sure we have overall energy and juice to be able to do that. 

The bench had a great day vs. Marshall, are you seeing that more consistently?

In spurts, in spurts. I think some guys are starting to play some really good basketball coming off the bench. It’s been a little bit inconsistent over the last couple of weeks, but I think a lot of things go into it so I’m not overreacting. We just have to get back to feeling good about ourselves. 

With the familiarity in conference matchups, is it difficult to put new wrinkles in?

Not trying to put new wrinkles in, just I think what we’ve learned and what we just talked about over at Trask is that we’re not sneaking up on anybody. People know what we have done, people know what we have and so we’re going to get that element of them playing with force. We’re going to get that, and wanting to kick our tail, we’re going to get that.

And so we have to, I think the lesson that we learned is making sure that we fight force with force, and more force so we can impose our will and be able to get out and run.

So we have to run harder — that much harder — because teams know we’re going to run okay. We have to deny a little bit harder because teams know that we’re going to deny. We have to do everything with more force in order to impose our will, and I think we learned that over this past weekend.

On Arkansas being prepared, especially in light of UNCW’s win at Rupp Arena…

Yeah, he had hose boys like we knew he would and that’s the message we tried to get across to our guys. I think they understood that.

I think Arkansas, they spent Christmas break together in San Diego, so he didn’t let up off of them at all and they were ready to play. They were ready to play.

Then, having the (Keyon) Menifield kid makes their team a lot different. He’s so dynamic and his ability to score to basketball and playmake and he’s a difference maker, but their depth, their size, their athleticism was very impressive.

We played UConn last year and I was very impressed with them and thought they’d have a chance to do what they did. I feel the same way about Arkansas; once they get it all clicking — if they can get it clicking — they’ll be a scary team when it comes March.

Scoring 90 points against an SEC team, what does that tell you about your offense?

We did some good things offensively. Some things that we certainly have to clean up, but we were sharing the basketball, we were making our threes, we were able to touch the paint at-will.

We did some really good things, but when you look back at it, the details of it, the discipline part of it, I don’t think we were as sharp as we needed to in those two areas. And I think when you play any good team like that, they’re going to make you pay every time you make a mistake. 

Trazarien White had 28, Shykeim Phillips at 25 Arkansas. Is it a good thing to go as they go right now?

Well, I mean those guys are playing some good basketball, but we’re going to go as our supporting cast goes. The other guys, we have some other really good players on our team and we’re going to go as they go.

This is not a two-man team, it’s not a one-man team. We have strength in the unit. We always talk about that and it’s a real thing for us. Everybody needs to be playing good basketball in order for us to be at our best. So we didn’t have that in that game. 

KJ Jenkins played well at Arkansas. Do you see his game rounding out more offensively?

He’s getting better on that end of the floor. I think early on he was pressing a little bit too much and he had the mentality that he had at New Mexico, where it was come in and get a bunch of shots up quick and that’s all they used him for.

He wants to play pro ball; he wants us to win. So, he has to use that to his advantage way that he can shoot the ball and score the ball. He has to be a playmaker, he’s going to draw a lot of attention. So, he’s got to be able to make the easy plays, simple plays kick-outs to his teammates, whatever it is. But he’s improved over the last couple months on that end of the floor.

He’s improved defensively but we need a little bit more from him on that end of the floor.

On KJ delivering when they need a big bucket from the perimeter…

He is. And the type of shots that he can make, we don’t have anybody on our team that can make those shots on the move, twisting in the air, flying off the screens in either direction. So, he is answering the bell for us in that sense, but we just got to play better overall as a team. 

What did you learn about your team in the nonconference schedule?

Well, we got challenged in a major way, not just with our opponents, but we had a NBA travel schedule and we didn’t do that on purpose; that’s just what we had to do.

Nobody would come to Trask and play — nobody. So, the schedule that we put together was something that our hand was forced, and we didn’t complain about it. We manned up and I think we handle it and navigate it through it about as good as any team could.

If you look at it on paper, you would say, ‘OK, you’re probably going to lose against Kentucky and Arkansas.’

That’s what most people would say. So, you got two losses off the gates, but we had three losses and we only lost to Arkansas. We beat Kentucky. So, I think we handled that well. We had lessons that we learned and our wins, our losses. 

We became more connected as a group. So, what they helped me learn was that we have a resilient bunch that when we get in a hole, we can work ourselves out of it because we’ve been there before. We have a connected group; we have a group of high-character young men that care about winning.

Those guys aren’t running around Trask right now, at their apartment. they’re not running around happy. They’re not happy. They want to fix this right away and I know that we will and so I have a lot of faith in those guys, but I love the group and I love where we’re going, and we’ll be smiling by the end of the week. 

On the frustration from the Drexel loss, with the offense missing good looks…

Yeah, I can’t really pinpoint it. As a coach, you go back and say, ‘Well, should I have done this? Should I have done that?’

I don’t know. At the end of the day, I was talking to one of my mentors, it’s a make or miss game. The team that makes the most shots is probably going to win the game and we just didn’t make enough. I thought we had great looks from our guys that normally make shots for us. I don’t know if it was a wear and tear of just being on the road so much or I don’t know what it was. I’m not going to make any excuses.

We just didn’t make enough shots and they were ready for us. We beat ’em two times last year, they returned everybody from that team last year except for one key guy, so they were ticked off.

The way that we beat ’em last year, they had the game both times and we came back and won bow times. So, they were ticked off. They were ready, our guys knew that … I thought we were tough enough in the first half and when you don’t make shots it really deflates you defensively and we just couldn’t shake it and we didn’t play our best game. 

On Luke House’s big performance and the feeling that the cards were stacked against UNCW that night…

I mean I wouldn’t necessarily say that, but they shot the ball well in the game against Hampton before we played ’em, and they hadn’t been shooting it that way.

They normally make like six threes a game and he made six by himself it seems, but we weren’t guarding, we weren’t guarding, we had no energy on that end of the floor. So, when we missed shot after shot, they were leaking out and getting transition threes and he was wide open. We would lose him in the half court. He was wide open, and he was seeing the ocean that night and it was his night.

And so next time we play them, we got to make sure we lock in on him a little bit better. 

On the quick turnaround and getting ready for Towson on Saturday…

It was a little bit more of a softer approach as we continued our process of coming in and watching film the next day and making sure that we honed-in on some of the things that we didn’t do so well and some of the things that we did well, we wanted to highlight those as well.

Then, we quickly moved on because we only had one day in between, so rest was the most important thing. So, we did everything pretty much on film work and walking through in the ballroom or on their court and then let the guys relax their mind a little bit, try to get a little bit of rest.

And then I thought we came out and competed really hard. I thought we were tougher for the most part of the game; they just made one more shot than us.

On the back-and-forth nature of that game and what he saw from his team…

Yeah, we didn’t play, didn’t play our best game and we lost on a buzzer beater, so that was something that we took away from that. We made a couple mistakes down the stretch or we challenged a shot and we leak out instead of sprinting back into play and blocking out and they get that offensive rebound, which led to them calling a timeout and them getting that last second shot in the corner.

We fell down, which we didn’t intentionally do that. We fell down and they were able to get underneath us and put us in rotation and the kid (Tyler Tejada) hit a great shot in the corner. Freshman — he’s going to be really good — but they hit a tough shot in the corner and when his opportunity was presented, he capitalized on it. So, it was tough. It was a tough way to go out, 

I thought we answered the bill. We were out-rebounding them at one point for the majority of the game. So, we were tough enough, we just didn’t make enough plays down the stretch and they did. 

What did you see in Trazarien’s matchup that led to him dominating the game?

It wasn’t necessarily for to like, ‘All right, we want him to get all the shots.’

We wanted to put him in a position. We knew we had to play inside-out and we knew they were going to really gap-plug and take our driving lanes away. So, another way for us to get it there is to post him to get some type of penetration. So, we threw it into him and he made some really good plays for us. His offense was going at a high level, so he made some really good plays for us, and when he kicked it out, we just didn’t make enough threes. We just didn’t make enough shots on the perimeter to get the separation we needed.

When you’re playing rugged defenses, how can you create more opportunities on the break?

You have to get stops. You have to be able to get stops in order to get out and run — clean stops.

Like I said before, everybody knows who we are, they know our identity. So if we’re a running team, we got to run a little bit harder, got to run a little bit harder, we got to pitch it a little bit more, early. We’ve got to play with more force just overall in order to impose our will. 

A loss is a loss, but is it more difficult to lose at the buzzer?

I was numb for a little while after. I really didn’t have any emotion after. I think maybe for me it’s harder to take a loss when you don’t do your system and be who you are, and you lose a game in that fashion.

I think for the most part of that game we were playing our system and playing to who we are for the majority of that game. I mean the whole game and they hit one shot. So I think I was able to digest that a little bit better than us just going up there just playing without a purpose. 

Player of the Week: Trazarien White, who moved back into the starting lineup on Saturday. Are you sticking with that?

Yes, it’s something that I’m sticking with. I wanted to see if we could get off to a better start, add a little bit more scoring punch to the unit. I think those guys have really good chemistry together. They played a majority of the game together anyways, it was just something that I wanted to do, shake it up a little bit.

Nothing in particular that Noah (Ross) has done because he’s been playing some really good ball over the last five, six games. So, I just wanted to change it up a little bit, see if we could get off to a better start. And I thought we did, but Tra’s playing some good basketball right now and the challenge for him and Shykeim is to get those other guys playing better and try to help them out a little bit more because they need their help. 

On the difficulty of adding another player to the rotation at this point…

It is, and we have a pretty set rotation and a number of guys that we want to play, so I don’t want to break that up at all.

So, he’s going to have to work his way back into game shape and he’s going to have to prove it in practice, but he is a couple weeks away from even being in that phase of his recovery. 

On Eric Van Der Heijden’s consistency on both ends of the floor…

He’s just being more consistent; the most consistent out of the three guys or four guys we’re playing down there.

He’s able to get us into our pick and roll coverage, he’s able to communicate just overall defensively on that end of the floor. He is able to rebound a little bit, he’s become more physical, so he’s doing some different things and just having an understanding just overall from an IQ standpoint; I think he’s got better feel at that position than some of the other guys. So, he’s adding some value to our group. He’s certainly got some things that he needs to clean up, but he’s starting to play some good basketball for us.

On Eric’s dunk late vs. Towson…

Wish it was like a four-point player or something, but no, that was impressive. It was a good play by him. I hadn’t seen him do that in a while, so he’s starting to get more comfortable. 

Do you like the rhythm of having Thursday/Saturday games in the CAA?

I do. We know we have home games coming up, that’s a plus for sure.

Being in the rhythm, the guys are able to get comfortable again and not have to worry about so much other stuff. So, we know who we’re playing coming up. All of that stuff is important to us, I think more so for the guys. Just getting them as confident and comfortable as possible as we move forward is the most important thing. 

What’s the biggest key for a team in going from a Thursday to Saturday turnaround?

The biggest key is trying to get as much rest and get as hydrated as possible. That’s the biggest key. And I think we have a pretty good rhythm on that. Just from being on the road so much and having so many games we’re so close together. I think that’s the biggest key is making sure we get our rest and stay hydrated. 

On the importance of film when you’re making the short turnaround for a Saturday game…

It has to be like that all year, but it has to be like that in those short turnarounds, ‘OK, what are your principles? What is your system? Are you doing you well?’ That’s the most important thing.

Then you sprinkle in, probably out of the three areas, four areas that you scout, the personnel of the other team is probably the most important thing because it’s tough … Some of these teams, they run so many different sets and then some teams run different defenses that you haven’t faced yet.

So, preparing for that in a one day prep is just tough. Being you to the best of your ability and making sure you’re doing your evals on your team and staying sharp with what you’re doing and how you’re trying to impose your will on your opponents is the most important thing, and then if you’re talking about another team, the personnel is important. 

Will you be watching Monmouth-Northeastern Monday night?

Absolutely, I’ll watch it live and then I’ll our have a video guy, he’ll cut it up and make sure I get it on my computer so I can rewatch it to make sure I didn’t miss anything.

So, we’ll try to gain some type of advantage there. But they’re a really good basketball team. They’re playing a really good ball right now; they’re not who they were last year, so we got our hands full. 

What has Xander Rice added to Monmouth’s team?

He’s a dynamic, dynamic offensive player and I don’t want to say just shooter; he can make plays, he can really stretch the defense out, he can go get it off the bounce and create free throw situations — he’s shooting a lot of free throws.

He makes their team different along with some other guys they had sitting out last year, but they’ve added to their roster. They have a really good basketball team. 

On Red Panda’s appearance for halftime during both of Sunday’s games…

Let’s go, let’s go. I mean, I got a chance to see her. She came and did our Midnight Madness when I was at NC State and I was so impressed. I was so impressed.

And then to see her during some of these NBA games, she’s very talented. 

On the message for being home for three out of the next four…

Yeah, just relax. I really do get nervous about playing at home because you have the tendency to get frantic, be very anxious, and I just want ’em to relax, cut loose, have fun, play the right way, play together and like you said, take advantage of being home and playing in front of the best fan base in our conference and one of the best in the country. 

Students are back on Wednesday. What’s it like from your perspective when that place is filled, you’re hearing it, and again, you’re surrounded by all those fans?

Special. That’s the only way that I can put it into words; it’s just a special feeling. Every time I walk out, I get chills.

The students and I have a good relationship with all of them and just interacting with them and our fans, some of ’em are here today and our supporters. It’s just a special feeling to be able to coach here at this university for this fan base to be a part of the Wilmington community. It’s just a special thing, and I don’t take it for granted.