ATHENS — Georgia is one of 10 SEC basketball teams to appear in the past two NCAA tournaments, and Mike White said the expectation is for the Bulldogs to be there again this season.
“Absolutely, we expect to be there, and I think everyone team in the league expects to,” said White, who enters his fifth season coming off a school-record 22 regular season wins last year.
“We’re going to have so many opportunities, we have to stay the course and take one game at a time, all those cliches.”
Those “opportunities” White speaks of include one of the most challenging schedules Georgia men’s basketball has faced in some time with seven major non-conference opponents:
The Bulldogs first big test comes on Nov. 13 when it plays at North Carolina in the Dean Smith Center in Chapel Hill, N.C.
The annual Georgia Tech rivalry game takes place on Nov. 20 at McCamish Pavilion on the Yellow Jackets’ campus, and then UGA heads to Orlando where it will face Cincinnati and UCF on Nov. 26-27.
Georgia drew Boston College for the SEC/ACC Challenge on Dec. 1 in Stegeman Coliseum, and then it’s on to Madison Square Garden in New York to play Duke in the Jimmy V Classic on Dec. 8.
The most recent time Georgia played seven major non-conference opponents was the 2000-01 season, when Jim Harrick was head coach, and the team had a 16-13 record but still received an NCAA tournament bid.
Senior Marcus “Smurf” Millender, one of the four returning starters, said making the NCAA tournament is “huge” among the team’s goals.
“It’s the standard,” Millender said. “It’s the standard, but not only to get to the tournament, but it’s (also) to advance and go far in the tournament.
“We’ll try to use what happened last year for motivation.”
The Bulldogs most recent NCAA tournament has an asterisk next to it, as an 85-68 win in 2002 was later vacated due to violations.
The last official NCAA tournament win for Georgia was in 1996, when the Bulldogs beat No. 1 seed Purdue, 76-69, in the second round to reach the Sweet 16.
To put that in perspective, the 49-year-old White was a freshman starting point guard at Ole Miss that season.
White, his right arm in a sling after undergoing rotator cuff surgery, said at his press conference on Tuesday that this team’s focus is in the right place.
“We have to maintain that focus to the finish line; in today’s age with all the distractions, they’ll all have decisions to make next spring,” White said of the annual activity that takes place in the men’s basketball transfer portal.
“Can we finish stronger? Because the way we played in the NCAA tournament wasn’t indicative of the way we played all season,” White said of UGA’s 102-77 loss to St. Louis in the first round of the most recent tournament.
“We had a good culture, and (now) we have a great culture where it’s important to these guys to give back to the fans.”
White likes the look of this season’s team, which added 6-foot-10 center Andrew Osasuyi from St. Bonaventure, 6-11 forward James Scott from Ole Miss and 6-5 guard Freddie Dilione V from Penn State.
The Bulldogs also added four true freshmen:
• Donovan Williams Jr. (6-2 guard, Oak Ridge H.S., Orlando)
• Hakeem Weems (6-9 forward, IMG Academy)
• Mading Kuany (6-8 forward, Iowa United Prep)
• David Ugonna Ike (6-11 forward, NBA Academy Africa, Saly Senegal)
Along with Millender, UGA’s returning starters including 6-5 senior guard Blue Cain, 6-9 junior forward Kanon Catchings and 6-8 sophomore forward Kareem Stagg.
“I think this team will be better defensively than last year’s group, I don’t know that we’ll score quite as easily, but we’ll play just as fast,” said White, whose team finished fifth in the nation las season with 89.4 points per game.
“.We’ll compliment that with what I think will be a better defensive team, and definitely and better rebounding team.”
Georgia ranked 185th nationally in rebounding margin last season and 156th in the country in field goal defense.
The two notable players who left the UGA program were center Somto Cyril, who transferred to Miami, Fla., and shooting guard Jeremiah Wilkinson, who led the team with 17.4 points per game last season before transferring to Arkansas for the upcoming season.
Wilkinson poured 30 points in the loss to St. Louis, but Cyril struggled in the season-ending loss, missing his only shot and grabbing just one rebound in the 12 minutes he played.
“I think we’ll continue to build on the culture we’ve built here, and the new guys are extremely bought in and hungry and ready to learn,” Cain said. “I just think we’ll take pride in (defense) more … this team has a lot more pride in that.”
Cain, like Millender, said making the NCAA tournament again is
“It means a lot, it’s the expectation, obviously it hasn’t the way we hoped to,” Cain said, “so we’ll continue to build, but that’s the expectation now.”
Georgia opens a three-game exhibition season at 7 p.m. on Oct. 7 against Georgia State and plays host to Charlotte on Friday, Oct. 16 before taking a trip to play Clemson on Friday, Oct. 23, the night before the Tigers’ football team plays a home game against Virginia Tech at Memorial Stadium.
UGA’s regular-season opening game is on Monday, Nov. 2 against N.C. Central, and after the flurry of challenging non-conference opponents, the Bulldogs open SEC play at Ole Miss on Jan. 2.
