MS: First, I just want to thank our fans. I want to thank Pirate Nation. Awesome atmosphere in there. It was electric, and we asked for it to be electric, and it was. I’m just so appreciative of the fan base. The atmosphere in there was awesome.
Cian (Medley) said it. We just said it in the locker room: I’ve been in many, many, many big-time games—postseason games, NCAA Tournament games and big conference games in late February and early March—and that felt like one. Absolutely.
To have one there on the first Saturday of college basketball at ECU is a big deal. Just very thankful to our fans and appreciate the atmosphere they brought in there today.
A ton of respect for Coach Siddle and UNCW. That’s a championship program. As Cian said, a really good team, a really good program for many, many years. That’s a good ballclub. Respect to them. That’s a good win.
As far as what we just talked about in the locker room, it was simply this: We knew post defense and rebounding were going to be big keys to the game. Wessler goes for 24 and 18, and they shoot 35 free throws.
We knew that would be a challenge, and it ended up being one. It got exacerbated because we were in foul trouble.
Obviously, we would have loved to have had Max (Klitschko) in there more. He only played 12 minutes. I thought he played a very effective 12 minutes.
Eli (DeLaurier) hadn’t practiced the last two days, and you guys could tell. I don’t need to say it. You could tell he was struggling out there ... Credit to Patrick Wessler and their team. Basically fouled out three of our bigs, almost, and we’ve got to continue to work there.
We’ve talked about that. Their 13 offensive rebounds—he was a big part of it, but they all were. Gavin Walsh, Spencer Elliott—their front line is really good, and they got the job done.
The last thing we just talked about was shooter defense. That was a big part of this game. We opened up the game with two breakdowns early. They hit two threes. They only ended up with four at the half, so we really shored it up pretty quickly in the first half.
We also were good in the second half. The problem is they hit two huge threes in the last two minutes of the game, with similar breakdowns to what happened in the first two minutes.
Without seeing the tape, obviously the post play from Wessler, the offensive rebounds and the fact that our shooter defense didn’t execute what we needed to late. Give them credit. They made big shots late in the game.
Q. You mentioned UNCW is a championship program and how big this matchup was going to be. You didn’t get the result you wanted, but you had a one-possession game. What does that say about your direction?
MS: I love the direction, but it’s gut-wrenching, and it’s heartbreaking, and that’s a pissed-off locker room.
I’m being as calm as I can right now, but I know the feeling I’ve got inside, and I know what that locker room just felt like, because we expect to win.
The guys in the timeouts were saying that. But Wilmington made the plays, and we didn’t.
Win or lose, we would go back and fix things. To the great point about, “Is it fixable?”—if we had won that game, we would have to fix the same things.
But I know this: The direction of the program, the direction of this team, we’re very excited about it. But that’s a pissed-off, gut-wrenching loss right now.
Transcript lightly edited for clarity.
