Mike White breaks down what led to technical foul vs. Alabama

With 13:58 left in Georgia‘s showdown against Alabama on Saturday, Bulldogs head coach Mike White was assessed a technical foul after he tore into the referees for a controversial jump ball call. After the game, White explained his moment of frustration.

“Just fighting for our guys,” White said. “I’m not going to sit here and talk about the officials. A lot of things we could have done better, but yeah, at the end of the day, when a player jumps on another player who has a loose ball, it’s a foul and we were just called for one. I’m going to disagree as a head coach with a lot of calls throughout the game as are most coaches. I guess I disagreed a little bit too much.”

On the play, Georgia’s Asa Newell dove on a loose ball after Alabama missed a 3-pointer. However, only moments later, Alabama’s Mark Sears was on top of him, reaching for the ball as well. White believed Sears fouled Newell before grabbing the ball.

At the time of the technical foul, Georgia trailed Alabama 52-43. From that point, the Crimson Tide went on a 7-0 run and never allowed the Bulldogs to come within single digits of their lead again.

The technical foul was one of many frustrating moments for Georgia on Saturday. In the loss, the Bulldogs shot 35.5% from the field and an even worse 17.4% from 3-point range.

Despite forcing Alabama to turn the ball over 20 times, Georgia scored just nine points off turnovers in the loss. Moreover, the Bulldogs scored a mere three points in the fastbreak.

Georgia has lost five of its last six games and is now 3-6 in conference play. They are fourth from last place in the SEC standings. After the loss, Mike White weighed in on his team’s recent struggles.

“You get beat by 20 on the road, that may be a surprise to you for me to use the word ‘positive’, but I’m talking to myself, as well, (and) I’m talking to our guys,” White said. “There are a lot of teams in college basketball that would have come in here today and got beat.

“We’re going to keep all of this in perspective, but we’ve got to win some games, and we’ve got to make some shots.”

On Wednesday, Mike White and his Bulldogs will look to bounce back as they square off against LSU at 9 p.m. ET. The game will air live on the SEC Network.