Mike White on what he learned, what's left to learn after opener

ATHENS, Ga. — Mike White figured a lot out about his team on Monday night in a 68-55 win over Western Carolina. For the first-year Georgia head coach though, there’s still plenty that’s left to be learned. Both sides of the coin were demonstrated at times on opening night of the 2022-23 season.

“Feels good to get a win with the Dawgs,” White said. “I am happy for all of the newcomers to this program, there’s a bunch, most of our locker room of course, and that goes all the way down to our staff, our support staff. Portal guys, freshmen, walk-ons, but probably most importantly, I am happy for those guys that decided to come back this year. We have put forth a lot of effort this fall and found a way to grind one out.”

“I thought we defended the 3-(pointer) well enough. Overcame some adversity there with a valiant effort early second half by Western Carolina. I thought they were tremendous with their fight, poise and resiliency,” he continued. “(Matthew-Alexander) Moncrieffe didn’t help us in the second half, he means a lot to us obviously. We had some guys that I didn’t quite expect to potentially play this much tonight, namely Jusaun Holt. He might have been the last guy put in the game in that rotation, but I thought he was fantastic in the second half with his energy level, a lot of things that didn’t show up on the box score. I thought we took a step in the right direction in terms of responding to adversary in a better fashion than we did against Georgia College. I thought mainly on the defensive end, we buckled down and stepped up our level of communication, our level of intensity. Probably, six to eight minutes left and got it going, strung together some stops.”

Georgia jumped out to a double-digit point lead within the first 10 minutes of the game and held that for the rest of the first half, going into the locker room up 15. However, the Catamounts came out hot, making four 3-pointers in the first seven minutes of the second half to cut the deficit down to just two. The teams battled back and forth for a few minutes, but Georgia found its footing in the final eight minutes to pull away for the win.

“I’d give it around — I would say the first half, we played about about a B+. In the second half, it was around, like, I would say a D+. And then at the end — the last seven minutes — we pushed it back up to around a B,” Georgia guard Kario Oquendo, who led the Bulldogs in scoring with 18 points said.

The biggest difference between the two halves? The Bulldogs kept Western Carolina in check, holding them to 25.8% shooting in the first half before the Catamounts turned it around with a 46.2% shooting performance in the second frame. More specifically, Western Carolina made nine of its fist 16 shots in the second half. After that though, Georgia locked down and held them to just three of their final 10 from the field in the last 8:06 of action.

“We have some toughness. It’s a group that doesn’t mind earning some floor burns,” White said when asked what he learned about his team in the second half of the game. “We did it again tonight… Terry (Roberts), Justin (Hill), MA (Mathew-Alexander Moncrieffe) in the first half, I thought he was really good, (Jusaun) Holt, Jabri (Abdur-Rahim). Depth. Parity. Kario (Oquendo) made some timely plays offensively. This group has a little fight to us. We have to have a lot more fight to win these (games) in our league, of course, and we have to execute better offensively and defensively. We have to value the ball at a much higher level. But, we are closer defensively.”

“Coming into this one, these guys (Western Carolina) were third in the country in three-point attempts, last year of course. It’s what they do, they space you a lot of times with four shooters, sometimes with five shooters. To only give up 18 three-point attempts is pretty good. It’s a pretty good sign that guys are locked in and flying around,” he continued. “We’re communicating. We’re anticipating. We’re rotating. We’re doing a lot of good things. We had four or five very subpar defensive transition possessions, one or two baseline out-of-bounds possessions, then we look down and they have 55 points. They are a team that is hard to guard. We are closer there, but we have a ways to go offensively.”

Part of figuring things out on the offensive end of the floor comes down to finding who the go-to guys are. Georgia played 11 players on the night, all 11 of whom entered the game in the first 11:13 of action. Matthew-Alexander Moncrieffe’s ankle injury which he suffered in the first half of the game and kept him sidelined in the second half certainly meant that White had to go deeper on his bench for minutes than he may have anticipated, but there’s also a process to playing and figuring out just how these guys fit together.

“I’m not sure that’ll always be the case. We went into this one as a staff, we thought that if we were in a good rhythm mid-first half, there was a potential we could get to 11 (players). I’m open with our guys about that. But definitely wanted to play 10 in the first half if we could,” White said. “I don’t know that we’ll consistently play 11. Injuries, stuff like that happens, and then you’ve got the J.I. (Jailyn Ingram) scenario. So, by January are we playing 9, are we playing 10, 11, 12? I don’t know. Whatever we feel like gives us the best chance to be competitive in our league.”

“What I continue to tell our guys, and what it shows our guys, is that we as a staff don’t care who plays, who starts, who finishes. We’re just trying to win,” he added. “We’re trying to grow, we’re trying to develop. You see certain guys down here with 10 minutes or 17 minutes, in the next one they might play 25. It’s just based on how we’re playing. As we have a larger sample size — guys like Kario (Oquendo), he has a bigger sample size. Sometimes he gets maybe a little bit more benefit of the doubt because he’s sprayed us for 20 or something before. I’ve been on the opposite end there. But some of these guys you’re learning about every day. We’ve had one real game with a bunch of new guys and returners who I’m coaching for the first time. So, we’re a ways away from us figuring out who’s going to play the majority of minutes and roles being completely defined of course.”

Georgia goes on the road this Friday to take on ACC opponent Wake Forest in Winston Salem, N.C. The Demon Deacons led by Steve Forbes made the NIT last postseason in their second year under his direction, advancing to the quarterfinals before falling to eventual runner-up Texas A&M. Tipoff time is set for 8:30 p.m. ET on ACC Network.