Unique, talented transfer class has Takayo Siddle’s UNC Wilmington poised for continued success

There are two seasons in Wilmington: beach and basketball.

Warm days are spent catching waves and cold nights are spent at Trask Coliseum watching their beloved Seahawks. Everything in between? Doesn’t really matter. It’s just there to pass the time.

It was a good year on Carolina’s east coast, then. A hot summer gave way to a dominant basketball campaign, as Coach Takayo Siddle’s bunch rode a 27-8 (14-4 in-conference) record to a No. 2 seed in the CAA Tournament. Once there, they dispatched Hampton, squeezed past Charleston in a nail-biter, and survived a scare from Delaware to secure their spot in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2017.

On the biggest stage, they adjusted themselves well, pushing No. 3 seed Texas Tech to its limits in the first half before taking a narrow lead with 13:58 to play. They might have finished the job if not for Tech’s Kerwin Walton, who drained eight 3-pointers to nudge David’s slingshot ever-so-slightly off course as the powerhouse Red Raiders eked out the victory and closed the book on the plucky Seahawks’ season.

As the result was put beyond doubt and the clock ticked towards the final buzzer, Siddle paused for a moment, gazed out over the court, and waved the proverbial white flag. By the time the horn sounded moments later, Siddle was already at halfcourt, vehemently congratulating Red Raiders head coach Grant McCasland under a giant scoreboard reading #3 Texas Tech 82, #14 UNCW 72.

By all measures, the 2024-25 season had been a successful one. Maybe if Siddle were a lesser coach, or a professional in a different industry, he’d sit back and reflect on a wonderful year, a first CAA Tournament championship and a program-changing NCAA Tournament bid. Maybe he’d allow himself some time to appreciate what he and his group had accomplished before getting right back on the horse, as they say.

College basketball is a cutthroat industry, though, and there’s rarely time for that. Just ask UConn’s Dan Hurley, who famously got right back on the recruiting trail mere hours after winning his second consecutive national championship. When one journey ends, another begins, and Siddle and his assistants had eyes on next season before the game-worn jerseys even found their way into a washing machine.

The beginning of what quickly became a remarkable offseason looked like this: UNCW’s season ended late night on a Thursday, the team landed back in Wilmington on Saturday, and by Monday, Coach Siddle and his staff were officially back at work, meeting with potential returners and getting a grip on the transfer portal.

“On that Monday, it was straight to the meetings with the current roster,” Siddle told Mid-Major Madness. “As a staff, we had already communicated and talked about our plan of attack in the portal… I wanted to meet with the potential returners first, and we wanted to go into the portal and upgrade at each position.”

Before too much longer, the UNCW brass had identified their targets and begun the recruitment process. Siddle has his requirements — “no knuckleheads” for one — but if those are met, the staff goes ahead and makes initial contact. If the player’s interested (and who wouldn’t be, really? Have you seen Wilmington?) coaches are patched through to the student-athlete himself, and the process really clicks into gear.

From there, it’s constant communication; on the phone and over text, mostly. This segment of recruiting is very personal. Siddle and Co. don’t promise flashy things. They don’t blaspheme. They don’t put the player’s name up in lights. Instead, they get to know them as a person, and vice versa.

If all goes well, as it so often does, the player visits campus, where he’s wowed by Wilmington’s high-level facilities and admittedly beautiful coastline. He takes a photo in UNCW’s iconic teal uniforms, mingles with players and coaches (who feel like “they already know each other” after weeks of communication), and steps into Coach Siddle’s office for a “Beyond Basketball” chat.

Behind those doors, Siddle outlines his plan for each individual player, no holds barred. Nothing is ever promised. The only guarantee made in that room is that the player will be pushed. Culture is emphasized. Family concerns are heard and attended to, and everything is laid out in front of them.

By the time dinner is served hours later (and I’m told it’s an impressive spread), talks with the family have taken place. If they go smoothly, which they usually do, the only thing left is the culmination of the process — the player’s signature — which is usually a formality by the time dessert is served.

It’s an impressive system tailored to Coach Siddle and Wilmington, and it bore fruit this summer. Siddle and his staff netted a whopping six recruits in the school’s top-ranked all-time class, including Binghamton superstar Gavin Walsh, a power-conference 7-footer in Virginia Tech’s Patrick Wessler, and an four-star guards in Jahnathan Lamothe (North Carolina A&T), Christian May (Towson), Madison Durr (Monmouth) and the All-CAA Third Teamer CJ Luster II (Stony Brook).

Five of those six were indeed formalities at dinner. The sixth, Wessler, committed hours later on his ride back to his hometown of Charlotte, N.C. All in all, Siddle and the UNCW Seahawks secured a big-time recruiting class, all before the third week of April.

While the quality of UNCW’s transfer class was, and certainly remains, impressive, that isn’t the story here. Instead, the interesting part of the story revolves around the four guards, all of whom come from schools within UNCW’s conference, the CAA.

For a long time, intra-conference transfers were exceedingly rare; this was mostly due to athletes having to sit out a year for transferring. However, the NCAA allowed players to transfer without sitting out beginning in 2021.

Even since then, though, intra-conference transfers across the NCAA have remained uncommon. Bigger conferences such as the ACC or SEC tend to see a few per offseason, but smaller one-bid conferences still generally see their departures head for other leagues. You can understand why, too — bigger conferences have more resources, more money, and more opportunity for nationwide attention.

This offseason, no other mid-major across the country has brought in more than two intra-conference transfers. Across the rest of the CAA combined, there was one: Campbell’s Colby Duggan, who headed south to Charleston.

So, when a school of UNCW’s stature brings in four, it’s something of a surprise. Why? Is there an untapped advantage to recruiting players who already know the ins and outs of the conference? How did UNCW manage to convince four players who easily could’ve fled to larger conferences to stick around in the tiny CAA?

To some degree, Siddle believes it was a coincidence. UNCW didn’t necessarily go out in the transfer portal looking for guys who already knew what the CAA was about. Instead, four of the recruits the Seahawks’ staff ended up liking the best just happened to hail from their own conference. In theory, that makes sense. It’s not the most outlandish idea that UNCW’s staff became the most enamored with players they spent all year scouting, preparing for and watching up close.

Whether intentional or not, though, there is a real advantage to plugging players with conference experience into UNCW’s culture. In the days leading up to every game, Siddle and his staff preach something they like to call “the game before the game.” It’s a unique buildup period where players and coaches prepare each other for different environments. Uniquely, when on the road, the Seahawks often focus more on off-court factors than anything else. Siddle believes strongly in the idea that winning is all mental, and if his guys can prepare better than their opponents, they’ll have an advantage every single time.

It’s a strategy that’s hard to argue with. Thanks in large part to his team’s meticulous preparation, the Seahawks have won at a staggering 99-37 clip (51-27 away from home) over the last four seasons, and Siddle credits that same mindset for guiding UNCW to three conference championship appearances in that span.

“When I’m trying to prepare them for NC A&T, and all the external factors that could really affect you,” Siddle said. “[The players] will understand that a little bit more because I’ll have Jahnathan [Lamothe] here to say ‘Oh, you’re right.’ Christian [May] has already been in there. These guys [Lamothe, May, Durr, and Luster] have already been there, and they understand what I’m saying, that these factors right here can’t affect us.

“So I think the game before the game, when preparing them for going to all of these different places and playing against some of these different styles and coaches, I think we can all help each other understand what needs to happen before the game even goes on. If we can prepare like a mature team and think like a mature team, then we can have some success.”

Things will admittedly be a bit different for the CAA Tournament; none of the incoming quartet have ever even reached a CAA championship game, let alone won the entire thing. But, Siddle is confident that for all the wisdom the transfers can bring to the table, the old guard can return the favor when it comes down to tournament time.

“The preparation [for the CAA Tournament] that we did was probably a lot different than any school in our league,” he said. “The way we handle our week leading up to it… [the returners] can really help [the new guys] navigate through it, and so when we get there, their minds are in the right place, and they’re ready to go out there and be the most confident team and have the most fun.”

You know who else has little in the way of CAA Tournament experience? Walsh and Pat Wessler, the two forwards that round out UNCW’s transfer class. Each rising junior is impressive in their own right: Walsh was among the NCAA’s best rebounders at Binghamton, and the 7-foot Wessler more than held his own in limited minutes at Virginia Tech.

Walsh, though, is the crown jewel on Siddle’s six-player summer swing. It’s not like the Seahawks were the only school after him; Walsh chose UNCW over a huge list of interested schools that included UConn, USC, and Iowa. On the court, the 6-foot-8 forward oozes potential, combining elite rebounding, defensive versatility, and a picturesque, ever-improving offensive game that seems primed to explode in his junior season.

To Siddle, that’s only the half of it.

“He’s an impressive young man, [who] really fits our culture,” Siddle said. “He’s got a couple years left, so he’ll be able to be a leader in this program because he really embodies everything I look for in a player. He’s an everyday guy, obsessed with the process. I think he’ll really elevate our toughness, elevate our skill, elevate our versatility… I think he’ll provide some leadership.”

Siddle was similarly effusive in his praise for Wessler, who he described as having “his best basketball ahead of him.” Wessler doesn’t have the same level of hype as Walsh, but securing a 7-footer who Siddle thinks can “elevate us in a lot of areas” will go a long way in a conference that historically lacks height.

Even with all that talent, Siddle refused to set a goal or an expectation for this year’s team. If “some” success is the benchmark, as he jokingly suggested it might be, these Seahawks are poised to blow past that. Yes, they lost a huge chunk of their title-winning squad — big names such as Harlan Obioha, Khamari McGriff and Donovan Newby have either graduated or transferred — but they’ll return some excellent pieces in Nolan Hodge and Greedy Williams, and at least three of the six new guys figure to slot into what’ll be a dynamic starting lineup.

When you combine all that talent with the veteran savvy of a roster loaded with CAA pedigree and a coach who’s done nothing but win, the sky’s the limit. Ask around — attempting to sustain success in today’s mid-major landscape is a fool’s errand — but if anyone’s got it figured out, it’s Siddle and his roving band of CAA mavens.

“I just want us to get better every single day, on the court and in our chemistry,” Siddle said. “If we can do those things, I think we’ll be sitting in a pretty good position.”