Georgia Basketball's Mike White sits down with DawgsHQ, shares on his team, goals for program
College Basketball season doesn’t start until November, but new Georgia men’s basketball coach Mike White has his Bulldogs off to a good start under the new regime. White, who was hired in March to take over for Tom Crean as head coach, and his family are almost all settled in in Athens, and with that, the former Florida Gators’ head man has been able to get comfortable in his new environment.
“None of these rebuilds are easy, but it (being at Florida where he faced Georgia twice on an annual basis) makes for more familiarity and knowledge of what needs to be done in your opinion,” White said.
Mike White brought with him to Athens two coaches – Erik Pastrana and Akeem Miskdeen – that he previously worked with at Florida. He went out and hired Antonio Reynolds Dean as the associate head coach from Clemson. Then there were all the support staffers and graduate assistants that White has brought in, including a pair of former Bulldog basketball players, Charles Mann and Kenny Gaines.
“In terms of the overall staff, you look at their productivity, character obviously, chemistry. You want a diverse staff,” White said. “I’ve always prided myself on having a lot of diversity in different ways. And in your three assistant coaches specifically, I’ve always said I want well rounded, future head coaches. I’ve been able to put out some head coaches, and I anticipate all three of these that I’m working with now becoming head coaches.”
“It speaks to the pride of this place, another reminder of why I jumped at it. You’ve got a really proud fanbase, a proud community here in Athens that wants to see men’s basketball be a consistent winner. Nowhere is it more evident than in the collection of former players,” he added, speaking about the bonus of having former Georgia players around the program in various capacities. “They’re super excited about doing whatever they can to help, ‘When can I get to campus? Coach, can I come see a workout?’ We had a bunch of high level players walk through those doors over the last couple of months, and we’ve been welcomed with open arms, my staff and I. It’s been really exciting, and it’s added incentive because you want to see those guys be proud of the product. We feel like we’re in a foxhole with a lot of these former Bulldogs.”
Mike White on roster rebuild…
Another aspect of the rebuild for Mike White and his staff has been getting the roster ready to go. Georgia lost nine players from last year’s roster to the transfer portal. A tenth graduated. That made possible for White to quickly put his stamp on the program with transfer portal pickups, plus the retention of five important players that decided to stay.
“I, and us as a staff, had open transparent conversations with these guys, set expectations, and I really told everybody on last year’s roster that I wanted what’s best for them. Period. If that meant jumping in the portal, I told them they should,” White said. “I made clear to those five guys that we’d welcome them back with open arms if they felt like our visions aligned, and those guys did. We’re excited to have them.”
“We wanted to make sure that we complimented the five guys that came back with guys that fit our vision moving forward in the long run in terms of defending, rebounding and being ultra competitive. We wanted to make sure we added some speed, some quickness, some toughness. We’re always going to target high character guys that we feel like can connect with one another and are acceptant of a growth process on and off the court. And lastly, we wanted to make sure we brought in some guys with experience winning. We were really fortunate to do that. We hit on a high level this spring in terms of guys that played on good teams at this level and/or another level.”
Getting a sense for what the identity of this year’s team could be, Mike White said that his guys have a serious approach and a little bit of a chip on their shoulder. That drive is being put towards being more competitive.
“Right now it’s a serious approach. I’ve been asked that a lot lately, and that word serious resonates a lot with me. That’s just the sentiment that you get from these guys, day in and day out,” White said. “We’ve had a lot of really productive workouts, we’ve had a couple average workouts, but we really haven’t had a bad one. We haven’t had one all summer. Guys for the most part come in and are excited and serious about their growth collectively and individually. There’s been no drama. There’s been a certain sense of a chip. Guys are excited about being more competitive with some of the best teams in the country in the SEC.”
“We’ll challenge all of our guys to be leaders. We also understand that leaders lead in different ways. We’re going to continue to challenge all of them though,” he continued. “We need improved and increased levels of leadership from guys that are a little bit older and have been through it, and the guys that are the most productive. Those are the guys that when they say something, it holds some weight. Braelen (Bridges) has got to step up in that regard. Kario (Oquendo) has got to step up some in that regard of course. These older point guards – point guards have to be the most vocal guys on the floor and these guys are both a little bit introverted but high character guys. I’m challenging Justin Hill and Terry Roberts to get out of their comfort zone. I would say the most vocal guys right now are Jaxon Etter and Jabri Abdur-Rahim. They’re doing a really good job. They’ve got to lead by example so that what they say holds the weight that it should. And a guy that’s probably leading as much by example as anybody would be M.A. (Matthew-Alexander) Moncrieffe with his intensity and work ethic, not only in workouts but outside of workouts with how often he’s in the gym and how important it is to him to improve.”
Mike White seeing work pay off, reshaping the program…
All of that culminates in the product that is the program. And when White steps away from campus to recruit, or brings kids in for visits, the feeling he’s getting from others about Georgia is a sense of opportunity and potential.
“It’s a place that a lot of young people want to be. There’s this question of, ‘Why can’t Georgia be really good?’ That’s why we’re here excited about this challenge and opportunity at the same time. We’re excited to find like minded recruits that feel the same way about the potential and opportunity of this place,” White said. “We sell Nic Claxton and Kenny Gaines and Charles Mann and Anthony Edwards. The proximity to Atlanta, some of the best high school coaches and programs in the country, some of the best AAU coaches and programs in the country, arguably the best state to recruit to, we sell that you can have it all right here. A thrilling style of play. I think guys will be excited about the way that we play, the way that we played at Florida and the way we’ll play at Georgia. So there’s a ton to sell.”
“We’re going to play hard and competitive and be accountable. We’re going to be good at controlling the things that are easier to control,” White continued. “We’re going to be connected, we’re going to take good shots, we’re not going to turn the ball over a ton. Offensively, we’re going to play fast, we’re going to let it fly, we’re going to be good on the offensive glass, we want to put pressure on the rim, but we’re also going to shoot a lot of threes. And ultimately we’re going to play with pride and play for one another and continue to recruit guys that are high character young men and will attract guys that are like minded, that like each other. That level of connectivity is a big separator between good teams and great teams.”
Miscellaneous Quotes
Mike White on last year’s team, what he remembers about scouting them: “Last year’s team struggled a bit defensively. That’s the biggest thing that I remembered from a negative standpoint. But I think they were incredibly difficult to defend, the staff ran really good actions of course and changed things up defensively. I thought last year’s group, from afar, seemed incredibly resilient to continue to fight and be competitive in this league despite the record and the negativity. I think it spoke volumes that these guys continued to fight until the ball stopped bouncing.”
White on Jailyn Ingram, his recovery from a torn ACL: “He’s such a responsible, mature guy, obviously older, and he’s doing everything he can within his power and control to get back. He’s doing spot shooting right now. That’s the only evaluation we’ve been able to do. Obviously he’s got a big time stroke. He’s working, and we’re optimistic that he’ll be able to impact this team. Regardless of how much he impacts from a basketball standpoint, we’re challenging him daily to impact us from a leadership standpoint.”
On if he envisions times where there are three guards on the court and playing small ball/how important the traditional “center” position is to him: It’s really big. We’ve got to have a really great year for Braelen (Bridges). Frank Anselem has got to impact immediately. He’s very different, and they compliment each other well. We could potentially play them together. But those guys have a healthy competition at the five. When Jailyn Ingram gets back 100% healthy, there will be some depth at the four with him and M.A. (Matthew-Alexander) Moncrieffe and KyeRon Lindsay. You could go small ball if maybe two of those fours are playing really well, you could put a couple of fours out there. Or you could go four guards. There’s a bunch of different ways that we could play. I like the parody that we have. I like the competition in practice. We’ve got to get a lot better obviously, but we’ll play the lineups that we feel like give us the best chance to be competitive on that given night. And minutes, and roles and starting spots will all be earned in practice.”
Mike White on what his message to Georgia fans would be about the work that they’ve done, the work they will do and what they are capable of doing: “I’m very proud of the staff that we’ve assembled, excited about the guys we were able to attract in the spring and maybe most importantly the guys that we were able to retain. There’s no reason for Georgia Basketball to not be really competitive, really consistently. In this league, that’s our vision. I would encourage our fanbase to be patient but also to expect us to be very competitive. And that’s a standard that we’re going to hold ourselves to. But I would also challenge fans to give us a chance, to be in the stands, to fill The Steg, to give us the kind of home court advantage that all these other teams in our league have which will help with the outcome that we all want. We can all do this thing together. Let’s ride a wave of positive momentum to get this thing going and then take care of it.”
