UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

February 5, 2022

Tom Crean

Men's Basketball Press Conference

Auburn 74-Georgia 72

TOM CREAN: I'll open up. Definitely disappointed for our players, our fans. The disappointed level of the game is one thing, and then after watching the last play where every referee describes to you that if the man is retreating, like Jackson was, and he is outside of the cylinder, that it's an offensive foul, but our guys competed at a high level. I just saw that clip, so I'm trying to prepare myself mentally. Just saw that before I walked in here. It was a tough way to lose, but at the end of the day our guys played extremely hard. They took what was there, and I'm proud of their effort. Go ahead.

Q. Coach, I think you guys were down by as many as 15, missing point-blank shots, really looked out of it. What did you say at halftime to keep your guys' head in the game, and what was the strategy to get Georgia back in against --

TOM CREAN: I kept saying throughout the first half, all we're doing is missing layups. We're missing layups and close shots. I think I lost count at seven or eight, right? We wanted to drive them, get to the rim. We wanted to reverse the basketball. They're going to foul you. It's just going to be a matter if the referees are going to make the call or not, so let's get in a downhill drive, and we just missed some close shots. At the end of the day I kept reminding them, they had a chance to grab momentum. They never did, right? They had us down, and we kept coming, and so when you go in at half only down 12, that's a lifetime. We made a few adjustments on what we wanted to do with where we wanted to attack on the ball screen, how we wanted to get some misdirection drives, things of that nature, control the game more from a play-calling sense. Once we had it in the half court, we wanted to attack their pressure when they came. We wanted to make them move and have to work defensively so we could get our cutting game going and get our driving game going when they were in the half court. Really it was just a matter of I cut the film short and all that kind of stuff, and it just became a matter of us getting back to what our game plan is because we're still fully in this to make our game plan work.

Q. Talk about the final three or four minutes. Lead went back and forth I think five times or something of that nature. Jackson put you all ahead a couple of times. What you saw the last few --

TOM CREAN: Unfortunately when you miss a couple of free-throws, that's tough, right? We're shooting 81, 80, 82, whatever we're shooting from the line in the league. You get 29 attempts, that's pretty good, but we're usually making more than 20, and we had some tough misses there. Jackson did everything technically perfect on the last play of the game, the last defensive possession of the game, from the way it's been described to me by every referee. That's what I have.

Q. I think I remember you beat a number one Kentucky when you were at Indiana. I know this didn't turn out quite that way at the end, but your guys seemed to be pretty positive afterwards. Do you see some things that can help this team as it moves forward?

TOM CREAN: That's my focus. My daily focus is this team and the coaching staff, and outside of my family, that's all it is. It takes up a lot of time, and that's to give them every opportunity to be as successful as they can be. We treat each game as a game plan game and have them understand what's there, and when we don't take advantage of it, get us back to taking advantage of it. We didn't play a perfect game. You don't have to play a perfect game to win. You have to play a solid execution game with great effort and great toughness, and that's what our guys did, so I think we'll continue to build on it the best we can that way, and they should never get discouraged. I told them if you never hear another word I say in your life, don't ever let disappointment turn into discouragement because disappointment is inevitable in life. Discouragement is a choice we make that many times you can't get out of, and there's no need to be discouraged. There's a need to be disappointed and have an urgency to move forward. That's all it's really about.

Q. Two things: Did you ever get a chance to talk to K.D. before or after the game, and --

TOM CREAN: I was coaching the game. I shook his hand. I just coach the game.

Q. At the end of the day it's a six-win team against a 21-win team and number one ranked team coming in today. What was your level of belief coming in based on match-ups and everything? Did you feel good about what you guys -- the challenge you had today?

TOM CREAN: As high as it could possibly be. Not a doubt in my mind. As long as we execute and didn't turn the ball over and give them a lot of live ball turnovers. No question the concern was going to be the back boards. Ultimately, an offensive board got us, but that was going to be the biggest concern was how can we compete on the glass with their size, not try to challenge them at the rim because of the shot-blocking abilities that they have. I had 100% belief we would win the game, and I think they did too.

Q. You mentioned the missed layups in the first half. The points in the paint were a dramatic turnaround. Obviously, there was a reason for some of those missed layups in the first half. You end up 40-40 in points in the paint. What was the biggest key there?

TOM CREAN: Just the space. The misdirection, the attacking when it's there, and when it's not there, get it move -- you've got to get the game moving so we can get our cuts, right, and make them guard. Make them have to guard considerable time in the clock. Not to a slowdown pace. I don't mean that at all, but if we're coming up in pressure against pressure, let's go, but if we didn't have it, let's make the ball move. Let's make it move and get them chasing us some, and I think when you do that, now that opens up the paint, and we didn't do as good of job of that in the first half, but we didn't do a bad job. We're just missing close shots. Then in the second half we were much better at it. Our execution was good. We weren't in a rush. Many, many times held them to one shot.

Q. I asked Jackson this, but after Wednesday's game, defense was such a big point of emphasis, and come out tonight and hold the number one team to under 40% shooting. What kind of improvements did you notice or were you proud of over three days turning that around like that?

TOM CREAN: We're a game plan team, so staying true to the game plan. We make some adjustments in how we were going to guard their better players. At times we did a really good job of that. We put a lot of emphasis on Jabari Smith. K.D.'s last bucket was -- we were not in the gaps the way that we needed to be in that situation because that's basically where he plays is from that left what I call the snake. It's that far wing area. It's between the slot and the wing. We call it a snake area, and that's where he likes to attack from, and we just let him get to his right hand. There were a couple of miscues, but for the most part our coverages were strong. We limited them. They took a lot of threes, I believe, in the second half, and we were able to rebound those and get out and play, and I think that was the biggest thing. The bottom line was better on the ball, but also more help in the gaps consistently, and I think we did that. I'll have to watch the film in full detail, but I think we did a much better job of that.

Q. Tom, you said that you had seen the clip on the next to last play of the game. I've seen it about four times myself.

TOM CREAN: What's your opinion?

Q. There's a lot of contact on that. Doesn't that have to warrant a foul one way or the other?

TOM CREAN: I have zero interest in spending one dollar to the SEC. Zero interest. I would just say that everything that's been described to me in drawing charges and what he was doing, I didn't see that not being textbook.

Q. You mentioned earlier Auburn has a lot of size, and they're a very big team, so how difficult is it to attack a team like that that not only blocks shots at the rim, but they alter a lot of shots?

TOM CREAN: You have to move them around. You just have to move them around. That's the most important thing.

Q. Even in the loss, Kario said, "This was the hardest we played this season and the best we've played so far." Do you kind of agree with that statement that you guys played --

TOM CREAN: I'm not reflective right now. We played hard. We played really well and did a lot of good things. We had great effort. Our execution was really good, and we played with great toughness. That's kind of where I'm sitting, and I'll watch the film and get ready for Florida.

Thank you.