Georgia Basketball bonding, buying into Mike White's philosophy

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Taking a look at Georgia’s basketball roster for the upcoming 2022-23 season, the 11 scholarship players played for seven different programs last season. An eighth and ninth are represented when you consider the coaching staff. Getting all those programs to buy into one can be difficult, but it’s a task that Mike White knew he was taking on when he took the job at Georgia.

“We’ve done some team-building stuff, through physical activity at times and Collin Crane, our strength coach, does a tremendous job, and he’s put our guys in a couple of those situations. We’ve watched a couple of movies together. We’ve had some meals. We’ve had the guys out to the house, typical stuff, nothing out of the ordinary,” White said on Wednesday at SEC Basketball Media Day. “But we’ve got a ways to go to find out exactly who we are, just like every other team in this league. We’re coming off an inter-squad Saturday where we weren’t particularly good. I’ll tell you, I thought we were pretty good yesterday, and Friday I thought we were pretty good. Through some trial and error, through some video, through some adversities, we’ll find out where this team needs to grow and how much we can grow.”

Georgia players talked on that topic too. Kario Oquendo and Braelen Bridges, two of the four returning scholarship players, were with White in Birmingham and said that they’ve been surprised at how well this team is coming together.

“I thought it was going to be a lot harder to build a bond with our teammates,” Oquendo said. “I think this year, on the court, it clicked easy. Off the court things came easier. Some of the guys came in, I met some of them on their visits and they came in after that when they committed, we already had a relationship … We hang out all the time. We go out, have fun on the weekends, stuff like that. Those times as a team show how tight knit we are. I think those are definitely some of the best times we’ve had.”

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“I feel like we’ve got a lot of good relationships. I feel like everybody bonds well,” Bridges added. “I mean, Mike White preaches that. I mean, if we have a good bond, I feel like we’re going to play good together. So, that’s a big thing for us … Obviously everybody came from different places. Mardrez McBride came from a winning program at North Texas. Jusaun (Holt) came from Alabama, so everybody knows how to win. I listen to them every day, and they listen to me.”

Despite all the different programs players are coming from, White has been pleased with the way that his team has connected on the court. Practices haven’t always been perfect, but the effort is there and the buy in to White’s defensive minded approach is obvious.

“Consistently, though, I’ve liked our work ethic, our competitive spirit in practice,” White said. “I think we’re a team that’s got pretty good depth. I think we’re a team that has a pretty high level of athleticism, and, again, competitiveness.”

“Each coach in our league has their own belief system in terms of where they are going to place their nonnegotiables and what’s important to them. I’ve always been a defensive guy,” he added. “Obviously we’re going to try to be as good as we can offensively, and I’ve had teams where we are a little bit better offensively than we are defensively. Early on in practice, especially this time of year, we’re going to focus a lot of our energy on trying to get some stops. Hopefully that gives us a chance night in and night out. Our guys to this point have been really good, really receptive in terms of embracing the fact that we’ve got to guard to compete at a high level in this league. This is a real basketball league these days, and if we’re not competitive defensively, we won’t have a chance. Getting a bunch of stops gives us a chance night in and night out regardless of whether it’s going in for us or not.”

Georgia officially tips off basketball season on November 7th with a home game against Western Carolina to open up the new regime. The Bulldogs will take the court for an exhibition on November 1st against Georgia College.