UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

January 4, 2022

Tom Crean

Men's Basketball Press Conference

Texas A&M 81, Georgia 79

Q. Hey, Coach, down by 18 you get up by one point; your team comes all the way back and then hits a big shot. Anything that you could have done differently?

TOM CREAN: Yeah, we just -- you're playing for the drive because it's a one-point game. We could have done a little bit better job on the screen to get Williams when they got it to him.

But Aaron ended up picking him up and he's playing for drive, he's in position, and he just rose up and he hit a three. So in conventional wisdom you would think the guy, he's playing it right, he's going to go to the basket, right?

But he felt -- he made some threes, he stepped in there, and he hit it. Only thing we could have done differently is be up a little higher, try to turn the dribbler. There is basically one dribble per second. When you turn the dribbler, basically takes off two.

In those situations you don't want to be up too close, you don't want to put it at the foul line. You want to have them make tough shot. He made a three.

Q. And coach usually aren't (indiscernible), and I don't think you are either.

TOM CREAN: No.

Q. But I think to come back 18 points, does that show you something about this team?

TOM CREAN: Yeah, I'm not surprised. They finally listened. It's a long game. We've had too many games where we've been down and we lose our spirit and we get discouraged, get distracted. Tonight they didn't. It's a long game. It's a great learning lesson for them.

We gave them too many turnover points in the first half. We weren't attacking the press the way we needed to, but we made the adjustments, we scored points in the second half, we were on the attack, and I'm not surprised.

We've had a couple out-of-character games. We're still really learning to play differently, and tonight we played without two guys.

I mean, Dalen gets rebounds and makes threes; Cam really made strides. We didn't have as much depth so we had to manufacture the game a little bit more.

But these guys did a really good job attacking off the sets and trusting the offense and we got rewarded for it.

Q. I was going to ask you real quick, you mentioned not having Dalen and Cam today. You been playing without guys it seems like all season long. Just the impact that has when you're having to do that every game.

TOM CREAN: Well, what you learn is nobody really cares, so you better just stay locked in to what matters, which is getting your team better. That's what it is. Just keep guys with really good perspective on being ready to play, on contributions. We're a big player development program, so it's got to be one where they feel like they're getting better all the time and when that opportunity comes they're ready to go.

In certain cases the only way we could replace PJ when he got hurt was with Jailyn, and now Jailyn is out. It just it is what it is.

But they work. They absolutely work. They get better. They believed. That's why my disappointment is not for me or the staff, even close to the disappointment I have for them. They played hard enough, came back, did enough good things to win the game, and we just didn't.

Q. Just talk to Aaron and Kario after the game. They seem pretty determined to not let this thing hold them back too much and get out there next time. Is that what you sensed in the locker room?

TOM CREAN: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And hopefully they sense it from me, right? I mean, there is so many things that I don't care about. What I do care about is how much better we get every day, and not allowing distractions and disappointments and discouragement and all those kind of things to enter into us, and just to understand that there is a lot of things we can control and get better with, and that's what we have to stay with.

So I'm highly confident, and you either deal well with your back against the wall or you get shoved through the wall, one or the other.

I know that sounds corny, but that's the truth. That's exactly how I coach and exactly how I want my team to play. We're going to keep going forward with. They are getting better. It would be hard to say some guys aren't getting better. We certainly don't have record the last few weeks to show for it, but we are improving and we'll get there.

Q. You mentioned too many turnovers, points that they had in the first half. Aaron had -- better distributor in the second half. What was going on in the first half?

TOM CREAN: Well, we didn't attack the pressure and they did a good job with the traps. Then we had a couple out-of-character plays. We were playing too congested, right? Our whole press offense mindset is to attack the press not break it.

There were who many times where he just tried to break it in the first half. And then they're in a matchup zone which is really not a zone, right? They want you to think they're in zone but they're really in man-to-man, so you just run your man-to-man stuff through it.

But the key is no matter what offense you're running, okay, you've got to screen when it's time to screen, you've got to slip it when it's time to slip it. The ball has got to move.

We had too many times and situations where we weren't getting that cutting and that movement. There were times we did. We just missed some plays.

But we weren't as aggressive as we needed to be with Braelen in the first half, and he wasn't as aggressive as he needed to be. He knew we were going to attack them in the pick and roll to get the ball inside, and we did a better job of that in the second half.

Q. Hey, Coach, first SEC game tonight for everybody on the team except for Jaxon. Down pretty big at halftime. How do you think they came back and responded collectively from and energy and fight perspective in the second half?

TOM CREAN: You just answered the question. They came with energy and fought back, and I'm proud of them. They did a good job with that. We just got learn to put the game away.

Q. Yeah. Yeah, 28 of ya'll's 45 second half points came there in the paint. How did you guys attack so well down low tonight in the second half?

TOM CREAN: That's what we wanted to do. We wanted to establish from the beginning of the game we were an attack game and not a jump shooting game, and that's what we felt would be there. Just had to come more from the middle of the floor in this game. The game is always giving you something. You study the film, try to have them as prepared as can be for what it's going to look like, and then you make your adjustments in the game.

But we always felt like we could get down the middle of the floor.