UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

February 26, 2022

Tom Crean

Men's Basketball Press Conference

Florida 84, Georgia 72

TOM CREAN: All right, it's disheartening I feel for these guys in so many ways. Crowd was great. I feel for them, I feel for our players so much. We just could not get both ends put together in a consistent way. Too many times in this game we gave up the straight line drive.

We guard the first dribble or the initial drive, but it's that second dribble and we're just opening up. We don't do that in practice, and it's happening because we're not in the gaps as much as we need to be.

And because a guy makes a three and we get a little uptight with it, whether it's man or zone, but we got to do a better job of guarding the ball in the initial drive, initial action that starts the drive and kick, and then the bigger issue is we've got to have more hand pressure. We've got to have more -- we have to be a deterrent and a disruptor when guys have the ball and they're shooting the ball.

There is just too much comfort when people are shooting it. We're there, but we're not there with our hands extended and flexed. And we work on shot challenges every day. We just have to do a better job in the game. It's not the offense. We're going to score. We're also going to have some lulls. It's part of the game. We can control our hand pressure and our hand -- and our flex of our wrist and the whole thing better.

Maybe not as good guarding the ball, but that's why we got to be in the gaps to detour the guy from believing he can get into a straight line, and we just didn't do enough of that.

So, go ahead.

Q. Tom, 10-0 run to start the second half was a crucial part of the game. Just kind of what happened there?

TOM CREAN: Yeah, we didn't have the right urgency. We had a couple of turnovers. They were unaggressive, right? We lose the ball in the post and they got some run offs. The first five to eight minutes of the second half or so, crucial.

We closed half, even though we were down I think 7, it's not a big deal, right? You just come back out and we got to go, and we just did not have that urgency with our own offense in the sense of how strong we have to be with the ball.

Then the same thing on the defensive end. Just not challenging with authority enough the way we have to when it comes to guarding the basketball when the guy goes into his shot.

So that was it. I'll have to go back and watch the film for a blow by blow. I don't have that recollection, but that's why I called the timeout, because we were doing self-inflicted things, right? Not getting our hands up our losing ball when we don't need to lose it.

Q. Big picture, you got two more left. Get a win here -- can you get a win? Can you get a couple more wins?

TOM CREAN: I hope so. Oh, yeah, absolutely. We expected to win today. You can't -- the way they work and the way we prepare, and we're not working and preparing like a team that's won one game. Unfortunately, we have, that's all we've won. But we're not preparing like that, and we've got to stay with that.

As I say to these guys, the more adversity kicks in the harder it is to fight it off, but you have to fight it off. You have to fight the mentality and all those things off if you want to be successful in life.

And it's not just about winning games, which is obviously what we want to do, but it's about the mindset you have to have moving forward. I fully expect we'll continue to do that and we'll be ready to go Tuesday night against a great Tennessee team.

Q. Fleming had not really been lighting it up shooting the last stretch of the game; some single digit games, but was 11 of 18 today. Was there a matchup problem? What were they able to exploit?

TOM CREAN: We didn't defend him as much as we should have, right? Because you're right. The numbers don't bear that out. He had a great day. They made 14 threes as a team, and a lot of it's what I covered in a sense that they're not feeling pressure on shooting of the ball.

We wanted to have Kario on Appleby to put some length on him. We're just not doing a good enough job of making them feel us our see that hand extended early enough. We're there. We just got to do it with more urgency. And I think he was the benefactor of that. He's a good player, no doubt about that, and they've got a really good team.

But we allowed them to gain confidence because there wasn't enough pressure on their shooting.

Q. You guys took much better care of the ball today. I think the ten turnovers was tied for the season low with the Auburn game. You talked about the defense and obviously spoke to that. How much from an initial reaction do you think kind of the outcome boils down to not getting a couple stops at the right times?

TOM CREAN: Oh, I don't think there's any question, and I think the charge call on Kario around the eight minute mark hurt our momentum because then come down to the other end and they end up getting an one, and it's a six-point swing.

And it's -- just is what it is, I guess. But I thought it was clean. I thought it was clean. Either a no call or a blocking foul, but I'm not out there officiating it. But momentum swings like that hurt.

And so in answer your question, it is. It's a couple stops in a row. We didn't get three stops in a row enough today, right? We had two at halftime. It's a big, big thing for us.

How many times in a row do you get three stops in a row? Deflections and how many times do you get three stops in a row? You have to continue to work towards that, but you got to bear down.

And, again, the shots they're making, like I've said, they're just not feeling -- and we've had some other games like this -- they're just not feeling enough pressure, all right, of somebody in their face literally or extending up. They just have too clean of a look.

Q. Kind of what happened from the three-point line? I think you all started 4 of 6 and I think to end the game it was 5 of 17. Did Florida kind of start guarding you all in the perimeter more? And just going down the stretch kind of talk about Castleton and Bridges going up and rebounding. And I think he had him 12 to 7 on the boards.

TOM CREAN: Yeah, the three point shooting, we missed some good looks. They made some and we didn't. So I think, you know, they defended well, they guard the perimeter, but that's where the cutting game comes in, the screening game on the ball, getting the ball reversed like we do.

We missed some open threes, and I thought the ball continued to move. There were a few times that we probably over-dribbled it, but I think we missed some open shots.

Q. Tom, free throw shooting has been something you guys have done a really good job at as far as getting to the line, and didn't really have that in the first half. I don't think you guys got to the line until few minutes into the second half. Just how big of a difference was that, especially when the game was close?

TOM CREAN: Well, it's a huge difference, especially when the other team is outscoring you by 15 at the three-point line. It's a huge difference. We average a lot free throws. Obviously we shoot them well, but we average a lot.

The game is fast paced, it's moving and we're attacking will rim a lot, right? We just didn't get enough. We need them. When you have a margin for error that's as slim as ours is, you need every advantage you can get. Getting fouled at the rim are big parts of that.