Georgia basketball preparing for game against Delaware State
Head Coach Tom Crean
Opening Statement
“Before we start, not all of our paperwork (on signees) is not done yet. We will make sure whether it's tomorrow or sometime early next week, we'll go over the recruiting. So we try to do all of them together.
But as far as tomorrow night goes, this team [Delaware State] is playing extremely fast. They played two very high up-tempo games, with Rider and with Manhattan. They press, they defend, they switch, they play extremely fast on offense and want to get out in transition, they want to attack the rim. They mix up their defenses to play a lot of zone. They'll get into us. They will absolutely get into it. It's a good test for us to come back and have to be a lot better than what we were the other night, especially when it comes to our defense, when it comes to our defensive transition. We’ve got to get better at moving without the ball. We've got to get a lot better at moving without the ball. That's something we spend an enormous amount of time on, offensively, and we're not doing a very good job of it. A game like that the other night is one where we were fortunate to win the game. Fortunately, we got into the bonus early in both halves, we were able to win the game with our free throw shooting as well. But whatever stats we had that were positive goes to show that they can be a lot more positive. Like we had 48 deflections, and really didn't work very hard defensively. But the hardest thing and I watch games last night and watch some other games, the hardest thing for players to understand right now is the level of competitiveness that they've got to have. It's multiple possessions. It's not even necessarily yet every possession I'm not sure anybody's got it yet and every possession, but that use look around the country at some of the scores, and you're not going to just come into a game and outscore people or outshoot people. You have to come into a game and outwork people, and you have to have a high level of competitiveness. One of the hardest things for young players to understand and we're going through this is you're not just playing to play. You are playing to compete, you are competing to a commitment of a standard—that standard has to lead you to winning, and that's what we've got to continue to understand. We’ve got a short period of time because we were off yesterday—to get ready for this game, but that's our that's our whole focus.
On the defensive transition and rebounding…
“The rebounding was a little bit mixed, they didn't go very hard to the glass—so there were a ton of long rebounds. You’ve got a team that shoots 50 percent of their shots are threes. There's going to be a lot of long rebounds. It wasn't a classic, let's get into each other type of game, but our hustle wasn't as good. You know, we got we've got a little stagnant inside of the game and we were open. We missed open shots, we were open and we didn't have to work extremely hard to get shots, but that's on us. We’ve got to work harder to get in the paint, get the ball reverse, get the cut and get the movement, things of that nature. Going with the defensive transition comes down to a lack of communication. It comes down in some cases with some guys to a lack of hustle and they were very spread out, right? They rarely ever ran anybody to the rim. Now, they might drive to the rim, but they rarely ran anybody to the rim. They were more of a five-out transition team, which is different for a young team, but it's not excuse, it's just different for them. We’ve got to do a way better job of communicating a way better job of getting the ball stopped—getting back. We're still doing some very, very sloppy things of reaching for the ball in the back court or trying to make a steel in the back court rather than sprint back. I'm not talking about the guy that's on the ball. I'm talking about making a stab at the ball, and that that's what you want to eliminate. You want them to understand—any team to understand their history in real hustle and fake hustle. Because the one thing you cannot fake is urgency, defensively and urgency in rebounding. You can't fake that. There's a lot of things that you can get away within sports. There are things you can get away with in basketball, that if your urgency is not right defensively, and if the urgency is not right on the glass, it shows up quick.”
On how much the defensive urgency is about being freshman…
“A ton of it. We haven't had leadership established yet. And we've got to work more on that right now. We haven't had leadership established on defense with our upperclassmen. We can't live in a vacuum of lack of leadership. We've got to keep developing. I've had teams that you had some great leaders that can handle a lot of stuff, I've had some situational leaders and I've had some that you had to give them what their priority was. Whether it’s telling a player you have to be the quarterback of this, and you have to take care of that. That may be where we're at, because we don't have a level of consistency or any communication from any upperclassmen right now. That was something I was afraid of. But that's what we've got to work on from here. It's two games in, I mean, it's not that it can't change but it's got to get better. But it also is got to get better for everybody that's in the game.
On Sahvir being a true point guard with Anthony being a scorer than can facilitate and how the dynamic is different with Sahvir handling the ball…
"I don't know, we have to have multiple decision makers. Sahvir certainly can drive the ball and create and Anthony can do the same. We have got to start hitting the paint and getting the ball moving. The other night we started out the game thinking that we were going to establish from the three point line and that's not how we can play. Whether the starting line up becomes what it is tomorrow night, what it is next week or what it is in Maui, that’s up for grabs. We have just got to keep learning how to play. We have no real identity. To answer your question, it's two different guys. They can play well together. But the bottom line is, we've got to get more movement, we've got to get more attack. Then, we’ve got to have better decision making and Sahvir is doing a pretty good job of decision making, but so in Anthony. What has to happen is, we've got to work better without the ball. Anthony's made a ton of strides here but he's got a long way to go in that. Sahvir has got to do an even better job moving without the ball because he does a fantastic job of moving it. But we want to get the ball to those guys more randomly where they are attacking long close outs and things of that nature to create more openings.”
On the short period of time between games and if that is more of a challenge with a younger team and if this is preparing you for three games in three days in Maui…
“That is really hard. The whole Maui thing is really, really hard because you've got to bring it at a high level for three straight days. And I'm not sure there's anything that prepares you for that. So that that becomes a real trick. But we've got to develop some strength in numbers. You know, we've got to put some things in place. Certainly for this game and the game plan, we've got to clean up what we need to get better at. From there, it's an ongoing process. After this we have to get ready for Georgia Tech and at the same time, we got to get ready for the game, but we have to get better at the same time. So there's got to be a really good balance. What happens on a day like today is there is not as much room for really breaking down things that we really want to break down and harp on. We have to focus on what we have to get better on for tomorrow night, as well as the game plan.”
Junior Rayshaun Hammonds
On Georgia’s offense…
“I think we are going to be very dangerous. They (Sahvir Wheeler and Anthony Edwards) can do a lot of things; shooting, passing, dribbling and getting all the players on the court involved. Everybody on this team can play their part very well. We all can pass, shoot, dribble and get involved.”
On Sahvir Wheeler…
“‘Sahv’ is very quick and he can pass the ball really well. He gets everyone really involved when we hand off the ball to him.”
On rotating players…
“We have been practicing rotating in practice but we are getting used to it. We know that everyone is capable of bringing the ball up the court so we just play off of them.”
On how they prepare for games…
“We do a lot of different things to prepare for games. I really can’t say. We just need to work on things.”
On rebounding…
“We don’t have Nic (Claxton) or Derek (Ogbeide) on the floor so we are just trying not to get out rebounded on the court. I think it falls on me a lot, I am a Junior, I have to know how to rebound, which I do.”
On playing physically…
“A lot of the way we play is about physicality. We have a lot of big guys and freshman. We’re all trying to play the hardest we can.”
Freshman Christian Brown
On Coach Crean’s message after Citadel game…
“Just worry about our shooters. They said last year was a high three-point shooting team, but just don’t over help on the shooters, get rebounds, push in transition, and play defense. Just the key points for us to get the win.”
On the importance of rebounds…
“He emphasized that the most. Rebound, rebound, rebound. That’s what he wants. If we can’t get a board, then we can’t get the ball. That’s what he wants us to do the most.”
On rebound mindset…
“I mean the mindset is just go in the paint and get that ball. That’s the main focus. If you want to shoot the ball, you have to get the ball. So that’s the main focus is to get rebounds.”