Teal nation celebrates Seahawks arrival back in Wilmington from CBI

Fans greeted the champs in Trask after the long bus ride home from Florida

WILMINGTON, N.C. (WWAY) – After an 8 hour bus ride that began at 7 a.m. Thursday morning – not even 9 hours after the buzzer sounded in double overtime – Teal Nation was waiting for the champions to return to Trask. Not even the rain would deter the fans. With the CBI trophy wrapped in the net cut off from the basket, Coach Takayo Siddle addressed the crowd.

“UNCW basketball is back,” proclaimed the CAA coach of the year.

He’s right.

Even if it didn’t end in a trip to the Big Dance, the team had one of its most successful seasons in school history. They set the record for wins in a season with 27, simultaneously winning the most double-digit comebacks of any team in the nation. That facilitated many exciting games this year, notably a 22-point comeback against top seeded Drake and the double overtime win, both in the CBI tournament.

“The program is headed in the right direction — when we took over the job. We wanted to make sure we stablished a really good culture of winning and doing things the right way. Culture of toughness. Culture of competing at a high level. I think The program is headed in the right way – I know it is. You know our guys didn’t budge at all. We fought through adversity and we were able to handle it and get through it together. I was very proud of their resiliency. Even when we got knocked off in the conference championship game it was a close game. We could’ve hung our heads and went to this tournament and been one and done.”