Mike White shares message to Georgia players for rest of season

Georgia dropped their sixth straight game and eighth of the last 10 in a loss to Florida this weekend. Now, with six games to go, Mike White needs his team to break off from some of the bad characteristics that they’ve shown as of late.

White assessed what his words to his team would be moving forward in his postgame press conference after the 88-82 loss to the Gators. He said that it’d be focused around playing better by not doing so many of the undisciplined acts that they do which have been costing them.

“We’ve got to guard a lot better. Got to make simpler decisions with the basketball,” said White. “We just did some stuff tonight that you could say was out of character. But when you’re saying that as often as we’re saying it? Unfortunately, that’s our character right now.”

“Again, some of the live-ball turnovers, some of the other turnovers? Some of the ill-advised fouls? Some of the just getting out of a stance? Not understanding that the screen is coming, dying on screen, and giving up a big three? Those things add up. You can’t win in this league unless you’re more accountable than that, disciplined than that,” White said.

Georgia once again held as much as a double-digit lead over the Gators in Athens on Saturday. They then lost such a margin again over the course of the second half. Florida swung it to as much as a nine-point lead of their own before eventually taking it by six.

For all the frustrations that he had with his own Bulldogs, White also took a moment to credit his former program for playing as well as they did to win again.

“I’m sitting here for 10 minutes talking about us. Florida is an NCAA Tournament team,” said White. “They’re really good, they’re doing a great job. They share it, they’re long, they’re skilled. They’re incredible on the offensive glass, they got stops and they forced turnovers when they needed to.”

Georgia has shot itself in the foot, both on the court and with their resumé, over the past month. All they can do now, though, is try to turn it around by better translating their work in practice to the actual games.

“Unfortunately, throughout this losing streak, we’ve spent a lot of time focused on those things,” said White. “We didn’t see as much carryover as we’d like to see. I mean we just gave up 88 at home when I feel like, in practice, we have gotten a lot better defensively here in the past couple of weeks.”

“It’s unfortunate,” White said.