Mike White not focused on postseason opportunities, sees improvement

After losing to Auburn on Saturday, Georgia had officially lost seven of its last eight games. With that, making a postseason tournament seems less and less likely for head coach Mike White and the Bulldogs.

For now, though, White is focused on improving within the season and isn’t looking ahead to postseason opportunities like the NIT. Instead, he’s looking to get ready to take on the LSU Tigers.

“I’m just not focused on the postseason,” Mike White said. “I’m focused on LSU and really breaking this film down as quickly as possible. Take three or four bullets that we can take that might help us Tuesday night, give us a better chance. LSU’s playing as well as they have all season.”

This is Mike White’s second season at Georgia, having gone 16-16 last year. Then, amid Georgia’s struggles this season, the Bulldogs have slipped into 11th in the SEC standings at 5-9 in conference play and 15-12 overall.

“We don’t have as many wins as we like. We’re a more competitive, better basketball team obviously than we were early and than we were last year,” White said. “So, we’re are building and we’re better but we want results though. We’ve got to get better.”

So, given the context of the season to this point and how little time is left in the regular season, Mike White is focusing on improving and controlling what can be controlled. That starts with preparing the right way for LSU.

“Have a great practice and film session tomorrow. That’s it. If we do that, it’ll give us a better chance of doing the same on Monday, and Tuesday night in Baton Rouge. Go down there. I talk to our guys all the time about how if you’re too focused on the result, sometimes you can’t handle that as young people as well as just staying in the moment. I also talk about getting some stops early, getting in an offensive rhythm, valuing the basketball, following the scout report, and hopefully in Baton Rouge midway through the second half, we’ll get a chance to steal one on the road,” White said.

“So, we’ve stolen three on the road in SEC play this year and we got one in non-conference, in ACC, correct? So, we’ve been pretty good. We’ve had times here at home where we’ve played very well. We’ve had times, like tonight, where we just haven’t finished as strong as we would’ve liked. That said, I think Auburn would’ve beaten a lot of teams in college basketball tonight.”

Tuesday’s game in Baton Rouge will be the second meeting between the two teams this season. In their first meeting, which was played in Athens, the Bulldogs won by two points.