ATHENS \u2014 Georgia basketball coach Mike White is not one to make headlines with his comments, but as long as the Bulldogs make headlines in the NCAA tourney that plays fine for UGA fans.<\/p>\n
White met with the media on Monday to provide an update on his team, which like most others on college basketball, has had significant turnover via the transfer portal.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally hard-working group, really different team than last year\u2019s team,\u201d said White, who led Georgia into the NCAA tournament last season for the first time in 10 years. \u201cFor the most part, our guys that we signed out of the portal are what we thought.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bulldogs\u2019 transfer class of five players was rated 34th by 247Sports, but White likes the team chemistry and ESPN\u2019s Joe Lunardi thinks enough of Georgia to pencil them into his NCAA bracketology field.<\/p>\n
Jordan Ross (6-foot-3, guard St. Mary\u2019s), Smurf Millender (5-11, guard, UTSA), Jeremiah Wilkinson (6-1, guard, Cal), Kanon Catchings (6-9, forward, BYU) and Justin Bailey (6-3, guard, Wofford) have brought the right work ethics and skillsets to make for an exciting open court team.<\/p>\n
White said Millender brings great speed and shooting to the lineup, as well as a strong assist turnover ratio distributing the ball, while Wilkinson brings great athleticism and scoring ability to the backcourt.<\/p>\n
Bailey, another guard, is a catch-and-shoot player who brings defensive intensity to the floor.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got good ball handling, good passing, good shooting, a little bit of experience,\u201d White said. \u201cWe\u2019re not overly old, but significantly older than last year\u2019s team, of course. But those guys all had moments and practices from the summer to the fall where they\u2019ve shined in different ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
Georgia brings back, most notably, Blue Cain, Somto Cyril and Dylan James, and has an incoming freshman class that includes Kareem Stagg (6-8, forward), Jake Wilkins (6-9, forward) and Jackson McVey (7-1, center).<\/p>\n
White, entering his fourth year leading the program, said the most important facet to building another NCAA tournament team is in place.<\/p>\n
\u201cWinning habits, just matching the culture that we had last year \u2014 last year\u2019s group was so resilient,\u201d White said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a ways to go. We\u2019re going to hit some adversities. How are we going to respond to all those adversities? The work ethic is there. I\u2019m convinced this group is really, really going to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the floor, White makes no secret of the challenge to replace what first-round NBA draft pick brought to the floor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll see how this group rebounds; last year\u2019s group, we were physically imposing at times,\u201d White said. \u201cI think this group will score easier. I think we\u2019ll be fun to watch. We\u2019ll play fast. We\u2019ll shoot a lot of threes. A lot of ball handling. It\u2019ll be the best passing team I\u2019ve had in a while.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we create some turnovers and defend at a high level, but defend differently \u2014 we won\u2019t pack it in, and we won\u2019t be quite as long and big.\u201d<\/p>\n
White said Georgia basketball is where it needs to be, from a progress standpoint, after taking a more aggressive approach to the level of competition he put the team under in the summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were able to stay pretty healthy,\u201d White said. \u201cWe got a lot done offensively and defensively.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bulldogs are less than a month away from putting their team on the floor against Georgia State in an Oct. 15 exhibition game at the GSU Convocation Center in Atlanta before the Oct. 26 exhibition game at Stegeman Coliseum in Athens against Troy.<\/p>\n
Georgia will open the season against Bellarmine on Nov. 3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATHENS \u2014 Georgia basketball coach Mike White is not one to make headlines with his comments, but as…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":233602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[16959,1339,1317,1337,1338,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-233601","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-ajc-freelancer","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-basketball","12":"tag-ncaabasketball","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115219173861894909","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}