Richmond, V.A. | Dead last. That’s where the UNC Wilmington men’s basketball team was supposed to finish this season. The Seahawks ignored the insult.

“As I looked back on it, I told the guys in the locker room, you were picked dead last,” UNCW coach Buzz Peterson said. “I don’t think anybody in our league made a bigger jump from preseason pick to where we ended up, going up 4 spots.

“They’re disappointed; we wanted to win this game very badly,” he continued. “We laid the foundation.”

Despite ending its season on the opening day of the CAA Tournament, UNCW had surpassed expectations. The team survived three departures in the offseason, one more in the preseason and an overhaul of the coaching staff and athletic department as a whole.

The Seahawks fought their way into the noon game of the conference tournament as the eighth seed. Optimism increased when their opponent, Georgia State, fired its head coach and promoted Paul Graham to an interim position.

Graham let the Panthers play with minimal offensive and defensive structure, instead emphasizing on aggression and intensity. That rugged style proved too much for UNCW as the Seahawks were defeated, 58-52.

 

Here are some leftover notes and quotes from the game:

Despite the loss, UNCW still owns the career series between the two teams, 8-7. The first meeting between the Seahawks and Panthers this season ended with a game-winning three-pointer at the buzzer by UNCW swingman Trevor DeLoach. The next was claimed by GSU in overtime.

UNCW sophomore forward Keith Rendleman was held in check for much of the game. Although he finished with 10 points, his first field goal came with 13:31 left in the second half. The Seahawks missed his offensive production in the first half, but only trailed 28-26 at halftime.

UNCW alternated sporadically between man-to-man defense and 1-3-1 zone during the game. GSU forward James Vincent was the reason for that. Vincent eats his Chunky Soup: he’s 6-foot-10-inches tall and weighs 250 pounds. Perhaps the breaking point of the game came when GSU guard Ali Jihad hit two jump shots at 11:14 and 10:15 left to take UNCW out of its zone and into man defense. Then, Vincent received the ball in the low post and effortlessly backed Seahawk center Matt Wilson into the paint for an easy layup. UNCW players hung their heads, unable to quell the Panthers on three consecutive possessions in crunch time.

The Seahawks had not played a game at a neutral site before the CAA Tournament. Peterson denied that that hurt the team, though. “It’s something as a coach that you look into, schedule-wise, but we didn’t have much to do with this year’s schedule,” he said. “A lot of that was set.”

Ahmad Grant scored a layup plus the foul on a backdoor cut 29 seconds into the game. He landed on his right wrist and told Peterson he couldn’t shoot the foul shot. He was substituted by Tanner Milson. He returned at the 17:08 mark with tape on his wrist, but was ineffective, missing two three-pointers, including an air ball. Peterson kept him on the bench the entire second half. “I hurt for Ahmad who couldn’t go,” he said. “His wrist was bothering him too bad.”

Grant wasn’t the only one bitten by the injury bug. Peterson’s son, Rob, was cheering the team on from crutches. He had a brace on his lower right leg.

The Seahawks went on a scoring drought of six minutes and 22 seconds between the team’s 16th and 17th points (10:46 to 4:23). In that span, UNCW committed two turnovers, made nine substitutions, shot 0-of-7 from the field and 0-of-3 from the free throw line. “It seemed like we got stuck at 16 for a lifetime,” Peterson said.

Milson was shut down in the second half after shooting 3-of-5 from downtown in the first period. The Panthers keyed on the freshman 2-guard after halftime, putting taller players on defense to guard him. It worked. Milson was 0-of-6 from long range in the second half. Peterson plans to develop him into more of a threat than just a catch-and-shoot player. “This is going to be good for him in the offseason,” Peterson said. “He is somebody that can stand out there and knock a three down for us.” According to Peterson, Milson is already working on his foot speed and lateral quickness and will amp up those drills during offseason workouts.

 

Miscellaneous Quotes:

Paul Graham

Opening statement: “I give all the praise to the good Lord for this opportunity.”

On his team’s performance: “They really really pushed themselves and dedicated themselves to what we’re trying to do. They played extremely hard.”

On the team’s second round rendezvous with George Mason: “I’m really proud of them but this is just one game. We didn’t come here to win one game; we came here to win it all.”

 

Buzz Peterson

On how the Panthers held UNCW to 29.5% field goal shooting, a season low: “They just get out on the wings. Getting out in the passing lanes, making it pretty difficult for us.”

On next season’s schedule: “This schedule, we kinda inherited a lot of it. We’re trying to fix it for the future and get some home games. Right now we don’t have many home games at all for next season, except for what’s in the conference.”

On Chad Tomko’s progress this season: “The one thing that helped us this year, Chad started believing in his teammates. He started trusting everybody out there and that helped us out a lot.” Read more about the senior guard here.

On the offseason: “Championships are won in the offseason. I’m glad I’ll have a full spring here to have some time with (the returning players) for individual workouts and improvement.”