5 hours Ago By Andrew Hughes
Dawgs head coach Mike White doesn’t want anyone to confuse his Bulldogs squad with a top defensive SEC team after a 114-76 win over the Knights – dialing down the hype after the successful UCF vs Georgia scrimmage on October 29. "I don't want to sit here and act like we're elite in that category. I think we fit more now in the SEC," White said postgame to reporters .
"There's so many talented defensive teams in this league, and we've got to max out defensively. There's a lot of mistakes that we made. Sometimes we weren't where we were supposed to be.
Sometimes we didn't block out quite as aggressively, specifically the last five or six minutes of the game. We didn't finish those stops. Our urgency and transition — I could go on and on.
"But the talent, the ceiling of our defense, led by that ability — with size on the perimeter and size on the interior — to block and alter shots and turn you over a little bit, it's better than I've been associated with in the last three or four years. So it's exciting to know that we could be a good defensive team." Dawgs struggling to score during Mike White’s Georgia basketball coaching tenure White’s Georgia squad scored 100 or more points for the first time during his coaching tenure during the exhibition.
Defensively, the Dawgs will need to become a top team if UGA continues to struggle from the field once the games start to count in the standings. The SEC is a run-and-gun league, now. Nate Oats has built a high-octane system in Tuscaloosa, Alabama that’s starting to bring in top talent year after year.
John Calipari’s Razorbacks brought much of the talent from his Kentucky teams to Arkansas. Rick Barnes has long produced NBA players in Knoxville. Georgia is still behind the pack.
The right moves look like they’re being made, but one scrimmage doesn’t mean all problems are solved. Far from it. Tom Crean couldn't turn the Dawgs around.
White’s just getting started in Athens..
