Lion Tamers: UNCW escapes with 70-57 win over Southeastern Louisiana

WILMINGTON, N.C. (WWAY) — It was a tale of two halves for UNCW men’s basketball in their 70-57 home win over Southeastern Louisiana on Wednesday to begin the Live Oak Bank Holiday Classic.

The Seahawks struggled out of the gate and trailed by as much as 12 in the opening frame.

While UNCW was +25 as a team after that, Head Coach Takayo Siddle was looking for answers heading into the locker room.

“Nothing was working for us, to be honest with you,” Siddle said. “We were turning the basketball over. We were settling too much for threes because we weren’t being aggressive at the beginning of the clock. We were having to take challenged shots at the end of the shot clock. They all were threes. We were playing on our heels too much.”

(Photo: Colton Emswiler/WWAY)

Nolan Hodge led four Seahawk players in double figures with 14 points of his own.

He says they knew their opponent was going to give them some problems.

“On film this week, we knew they were going to compete hard and that’s what they did,” Hodge said. “We feel like they dictated the game in the first half. Coach came in and told us what we need to adjust. We went out there and started defending and competing. That was the main thing.”

(Photo: Colton Emswiler/WWAY)

Siddle hopes even a victory can serve as a teaching moment for his program.

“We always have to be the aggressor,” Siddle said. “No matter what, if we’re not scoring the basketball, we have to defend. Us giving up 53-percent in a half is not us at all. We’ve been on this four-game winning streak because we’ve defended at a high level. I thought a lot of situations came up in that game that were really good for us and we’re going to learn from them.”

UNCW next takes the floor on Friday at home against Navy at 3 p.m. Watch that game on WWAY’s the CW channel.