UNCW dominated the paint and pushed the pace on Sunday afternoon

UNCW 79, Delaware 74

Box Score | Siddle Postgame | White, Phillips Postgame

Trask Coliseum was on fire and the Hawks were flying again on Sunday afternoon.

Bringing energy from the opening tip, UNCW made a point of picking up the pace and turned things up in transition in a 79-74 victory over Delaware, as the teams yet again battled to the final buzzer.

“Delaware is tough,” UNCW coach Takayo Siddle said. “We always have really good games with them, it’s kind of a rival. I don’t know if they like us; we don’t like them.”

In all, 12 Seahawks got into the game while 10 scored in a total team victory, led by Trazarien White with 19 points, 8 rebounds and 4 assists, while Shykeim Phillips again provided clutch buckets on his way to 17 points.

After a shaky start, the Seahawks have evened up their CAA record at 2-2 after a solid weekend back home.

“We attacked it; we attacked it the right way,” Siddle said. ‘My main message was keep your spirit up, keep your spirit high and let’s make sure we attack our process with energy, and they’ve exceeded that. They exceeded that all week; we prepared the right way, we were hungry, we were desperate for a couple of wins.”

Upside Inside Out

Losing road games happens in a college basketball season, but UNCW’s 0-2 start was particularly disappointing because of how far the Seahawks strayed from their inside-out approach at Drexel and Towson.

“We knew they would pack driving lanes and double in the post and do certain things,” Siddle said. “We kind of fed into it; we just hoisted up a bunch of threes without touching the paint first.”

After shooting 10 for 47 from beyond the arc and struggling to create quality paint touches on the road trip, the Seahawks were determined to fix it.

“So, we really honed in on playing inside-out and getting paint touches, and whatever is presenting us when we get there, just take it,” Siddle said. “I thought we did a really good job over the past couple of games doing that.”

The Seahawks most certainly did that on Sunday with a season-high (vs. D1 competition) 42 points in the paint, and in turn, forced the Delaware defense to collapse and send help to the middle.

UNCW ended up hitting only 6 of 24 attempts from 3-point range, but several misses were textbook, wide-open shots off a kick-out pass.

“We start inside, kicking it out but it wasn’t falling,” UNCW forward Trazarien White said. “But we stuck to the plan, and eventually, inside-out was starting to work for us down the stretch.”

With Delaware sending double teams at him all day, White picked a few key moments to play distributor after getting the Hens’ defense into a rotation. In particular, he kicked out of two straight double-teams to hit Eric Van Der Heijden for the go-ahead 3-pointer with 8:55 to play, immediately followed by another to Shemar Rathan-Mayes to make it 63-59 at the 8:20 mark.

Might seem a little funny to say UNCW made progress on the inside-out game after shooting 11 for 48 from 3-point range over the past two games, but those looks, were generally in the flow of the offense and higher-quality shots.

At some point, they’ll fall.

Either way, the 42 paint points was a major step with the Seahawks coming into the game averaging 25.2 per game.

Up to Speed

If the Seahawks looked a little faster on Sunday, that’s because they were — in a major way.

Per Synergy, UNCW had 18 transition possessions that resulted in 24 points on 10 of 17 shooting from the field.

For comparison, over the previous three CAA games, the Hawks had a total of 28 transition possessions, resulting in 21 points on 7 of 22 shooting from the field.

Clearly, it was an emphasis for the Seahawks to get the ball moving whenever possible today, whether that was inbounding the ball as fast as they’ve done all season or extending the defensive pressure on the wings a bit to jump passing lanes.

The 10 steals were a season high vs. D1 competition, as seven different Seahawks grabbed at least one.

UNCW is 8-0 when it forces 13 or more turnovers, and 3-5 when it generates 12 or fewer. Overall, the Seahawks are forcing an average of 14.8 turnovers in wins, and 9.8 in losses.

In a related point on pace and possessions: KenPom put the game at 70 possessions, which is the highest total UNCW has played at in CAA games thus far. For comparison, the Towson root canal was 58 possessions.

UNCW is 8-1 in 70+ possession games (Arkansas as the only loss) and 3-4 in games with 69 or fewer possessions.

Siddle talked last week about imposing their will on opponents who want to slow them down, and that will continue to be a key. These Seahawks need to fly free to play their game — even if the other team isn’t cooperating.

Nolan and Friends

Friend of the Perch Brian Mull has a simple explanation for why he likes this UNCW team: they have more good players than everyone else.

Therein lies the paradox of college hoops, where coaches are usually looking to stick with a rotation of about eight players they’ll trust when those conference matchups start getting tight.

There are several UNCW players toward the bottom of the rotation right now that would be getting starter minutes elsewhere, which requires incredible buy-in from everyone in the program.

It seems it’ll be on a case-by-case basis, because after splitting up 55 minutes among five players off the bench on Thursday night, he went to seven different players for 83 minutes on Sunday.

Nolan Hodge took advantage of his chance, scoring 7 points and grabbing 4 rebounds in 16 minutes while playing excellent defense and diving for several loose balls to earn Sunday’s Toughness Chain.

It was quite a performance, considering he had played a total of 12 minutes — including one DNP — over the first three CAA games.

“Man, Nolan Hodge was great tonight,” Senior guard Shykeim Phillips said. “He stayed down when things weren’t going (well) — he had a little adversity — he stayed with the process and he was good for us. He got 50/50 balls, he got good rebounds, he made big shots; Nolan was great.”

After Phillips commented on Hodge’s night, White chimed in: “Still a lot to see from Nolan. He’s an amazing player; bright future.”

For the seven players that came off the bench, you can point to at least one play they made that directly impacted the result.

For Noah Ross, it was a couple of free throws and four rebounds; Ahmard Harvey played two minutes in his debut, but delivered a key assist for Hodge. Nick Farrar got a steal and set up KJ Jenkins for a layup as part of his 10-point first half. We’ve already mentioned Van Der Heijden and Rathan-Mayes, who also delivered defensively.

“Shem did a really good job with his minutes, KJ played well,” Siddle said. “That was a total team win for us.”

Unexplainable Weirdness?

At times, it felt like UNCW was pretty well dominating the game yet the Blue Hens just wouldn’t go away. What gives?

In the first half, Delaware’s six 3-pointers — a couple defensive breakdowns, a couple tough shots — kept them hanging around. The second half was more just them being an incredibly tough team with an All-CAA scorer in Jyare Davis, and overall, Delaware only had one stretch of three straight missed field goal attempts.

This is contrary to our usual approach with data, but: jeez, how many times did the Hens get a friendly bounce on the rim or in pursuit of a rebound?

More related to actual numbers, UNCW was unable to get its usual boost at the free throw line.

The Seahawks came in averaging just over 22 free throw attempts per game, putting them in the 82nd percentile nationally — free throws are a big part of what they’re trying to accomplish in attacking the paint.

Luckily, UNCW made the most of its chances in going a perfect 13 for 13 at the line, but six of those attempts came in the final 20 seconds as Delaware tried to extend the game.

After Maleeck Harden-Hayes knocked down three with 10:51 to go in the first half, it wasn’t until Shykeim Phillips was fouled on a layup with 6:57 remaining in the second that the Hawks got back to the line.

That’s not to say we miss the Saturday #CAAref Free Throw Shooting Contest, because this is definitely preferable — but it might explain why UNCW wasn’t able to get as much separation.

The Trask Factor

After spending two months on the road, the Seahawks were in need of an energy boost at home, and UNCW students and the Wilmington community delivered with two sold-out crowds.

The Seahawks execution wasn’t always perfect on Sunday, but the energy and effort were noticeably great for 40 minutes. (Or maybe 38, after that early timeout.)

“It’s just amazing, I have no words for it honestly,” White said. “It just brings us so much energy; they get the effort plays, diving on the ground, they get loud for us. … they give us the energy to do all the hard (work): getting on the ground, taking charges. It makes us want to do all of that stuff, because we know they’ll get into that.”

Old pal Dan Spears made an excellent point after the Towson loss: at some point, the travel, hotels, and having to create their own energy every night was going to catch up with UNCW.

This weekend, they came out firing and played exceptionally at times.

“That was pretty special; at some times it was rocking in there,” Siddle said. “Our students were tremendous, the community that came out was tremendous. I honestly think that was what got us over the hump.”

Up Next — at Elon, Thursday, 7 p.m.

The Seahawks get a few days to prepare to travel west to meet Elon. The Phoenix (8-9) is off to a 1-2 start in CAA play thanks to consecutive losses to Charleston and Drexel.

Elon is capable of getting hot from 3-point range, but to this point, it has been one of the nation’s worst defensive teams, ranking No. 355 of 362 teams in efficiency.

Y’all know what’s coming up on Saturday night.