Mike White explains Frank Anselem's limited playing time vs. Texas A&M

Frank Anselem is averaging 15 minutes per game for Georgia this season. But he only played nine minutes last week against Texas A&M, and Mike White explained why that was.

White cited matchups as the reason Anselem only saw nine minutes of action, scoring two points and committing three fouls. It gave other players such as Matthew-Alexander Moncrieffe and Braelen Bridges a chance to play the center position.

“Offensively, for us, they play a pretty unique defense where we went into the game thinking it might be a better one for ‘M.A.’ or Braelen at the five,” White said. “They’re as stingy on the interior defensively, really the opposite in the spectrum of us and our defense. We’ve defended the three really well, we’ve struggled on the interior defensively. They’ve actually given up a bunch of threes and they sell out to defending the rim. We wanted to get Braelon and M.A. on the perimeter as much as possible with their ability to pass it, to play-make. That was kind of the plan going in, and I thought both those guys did some pretty good things.

“Each night against each opponent, it’s a different game plan. That said, any of these guys that come off the bench, if they play really well, obviously, we’re going to try to play them as much as possible, just like Jabri [Abdur-Rahim]. Jabri comes off the bench and he plays 34 minutes because he played really well. All these guys are going to continue to get opportunities.”

Mike White criticizes Georgia’s physicality vs. Texas A&M

Georgia coach Mike White knows if his team wants to improve over the final month of the regular season, it starts in the post. Coming off of a 82-57 blowout loss to Texas A&M on Saturday, White criticized the Bulldogs for their lack of physicality.

The Aggies outscored Georgia 38-20 in the paint and also outrebounded the Bulldogs 43-30. In his postgame press conference, White called for his team to do better at standing their ground on defense down low.

“I thought we were dominated in the paint again,” he said. “We continue to give up layups and dunks in the paint. Whether we’re zone or man, our interior defense, it’s gotta improve down the stretch for us to have a chance in some of these SEC games. It’s just our inability to protect the rim. We’re not the best shot-blocking team, but we’ve gotta take more charges. We’ve gotta swarm to the ball more.

“Our frontcourt’s gotta match some of these frontcourts’ physicality and our guards gotta help ’em. Our guards gotta get down there and fight in the mix.”