Mike White, Georgia ready for Senior Day at Stegeman Coliseum

ATHENS, Ga. — “What a tough week for the Bulldogs.” Those are the words of Georgia head coach Mike White when speaking with media on Friday ahead of his team’s Saturday home game against Missouri.

Georgia has lost its last two in ugly fashion – to say the least. A 49-point loss at Alabama and a 32-point defeat to Arkansas within the last week has left Bulldog fans with a stark realization of just how far their team still has to go to be one of the sport’s elite programs. However, if they need a reminder of how far that team has come in year one of the Mike White era, just look at the record.

With 16 wins already to its name, Georgia is guaranteed a winning record in the regular season. With just one more win – whether that come in the final three games of the regular season or in Nashville at the SEC Tournament – an overall winning record is theirs. It comes on the heels of a season that the Bulldogs won just one game in the SEC and six games overall, losing to the likes of Wofford, George Mason, East Tennessee State and Gardner-Webb. At least this season the majority of losses have come to teams projected to make the NCAA Tournament.

“Great opportunities are in front of us. They’re all winnable, they’re all losable. But our attention and focus is on Missouri and Senior Day,” White said. “I’m sure it will be rocking in there tomorrow and we’ve had some success at home. We’ll have to play well. We’ll have to play better than we did on the road although I thought we did some good things the other day. Arkansas is obviously better than we are. I thought they played well, I really do. But I thought we did a lot of good things and I thought we played really hard in that one.”

The Tigers are currently on the 10-seed line in Joe Lunardi’s most recent NCAA Tournament projection. At 20-8 overall and 8-7 in the SEC, Missouri is led by big man Kobe Brown who’s averaging 16.4 points per game as well as D’Moi Hodge and DeAndre Gholston, both at or above 10.0 points per game on the season.

“We took a day and we needed to take a day. I wish we could’ve taken a few days, and we’ve had a ton of travel here recently,” White said on his team’s preparation for Missouri. “We’ve gone really quick the last couple in an effort to get our legs back under us. Also, it’s just that time of year where most teams in our league are a little quicker than they were in November or December. But we’ve gone hard. Our guys have competed at a high level. Missouri has our guys’ attention. We have a tournament team coming in here tomorrow and a great opportunity if we play well.”

“Tempo, offense spread you. They play with a really high level of connection offensively and a high level of confidence,” he continued, speaking about the Tigers and their strengths. “They share it, they space you. They’re probably as good of a passing team as anyone in our league and they’re willing. They seem to like to play with one another, and defensively, they do a good job of turning you over with some changing defenses. They play really hard as do teams like them that are slated to go to the NCAA Tournament. They’ve got a good team.”

Speaking of that Senior Day that White mentioned, it’s obviously a special one for the five players being recognized. Braelen Bridges, Jaxon Etter, Jailyn Ingram, Mardrez McBride and Terry Roberts all will be honored in a pregame ceremony before the penultimate regular season contest at Stegeman Coliseum. While Etter and Roberts both have eligibility remaining, all five of the players in their fourth year or later are going to take advantage of the chance to be celebrated.

“We inherited three of the seniors. I’m proud of their growth and their development and their buy-in,” White said. “All of those guys have gone through a process of ‘New coach, this isn’t what I signed up for,’ ups and downs, but playing well at the end of it and practicing hard and having a great attitude. None of those guys had an average practice today. It’s important to them. I’m proud of Braelen Bridges, he’s come a long way. Jaxon Etter is as good of a culture guy as I’ve ever coached. Jailyn Ingram, he’s in the one-percentile of having to overcome what he’s had to overcome in his collegiate career. He’s diving for loose balls and coming to work every day. I’m sure his body doesn’t feel as good as these 18, 19-year-olds in our league, but I’m proud of those guys and anxious for them to have the opportunity to be recognized tomorrow in front of our fans.”

Tip time between the Bulldogs and Tigers is set for 1:00 p.m. ET on the SEC Network. It’s the second to last home game for Georgia this season with a Tuesday contest against Florida on deck to be followed by a road game against South Carolina next Saturday and an appearance in the SEC Tournament the week after.