What Mike White said about No. 5 Tennessee, Dalton Knecht after 85-79 loss to the Vols

ATHENS — What Georgia coach Mike White said after rallying from down 14 points against No. 5 Tennessee, taking an 11-point lead then losing 85-79 to the Vols Saturday afternoon at Stegeman Coliseum:

Opening Statement

“Incredible environment. I’m really appreciative to all of our fans that showed up, how they showed up, as active as they were. It’s the loudest that I’ve ever heard Stegeman, ever, and it’s just unfortunate that we weren’t able to capitalize and reward our fans for helping us, being as a big of a factor as they were – in a game where we had chances down the stretch. Credit Tennessee – one of the best teams in the country. They have a chance to be a Final Four team. (Tennessee’s Dalton) Knecht was phenomenal down the stretch, offensively. They’ve got veteran guards. Zakai Zeigler is such a presence defensively. He does so many things that don’t show up in the stat sheet. The way he blew up our sideline offense, out of bounds defensively, with his activity and energy. I thought he was a huge factor, as well. I thought we played really hard. A lot of things we have to clean up. We have to continue to get better, but I thought we had some good individual performances. I thought we played with a lot of confidence and rode the environment in our building.”

What the difference was for Georgia late in the game

“They fought for every inch on the court, defensively. We struggled to get a clean look when it most mattered, but then we got down five or six there – what was it? Five or six? We actually got open looks, but they just didn’t go. Could’ve made it more interesting. And then our inability to get stops, to slow Knecht, and to get them off the foul line.”

Where Georgia struggled to stop Tennessee’s Dalton Knecht

“Sometimes, good offense just beats good defense. He hit a couple that were heavily contested. I thought we had a couple with ill-advised fouls where we were pressuring him a little bit, and then he just gets easy ones at the foul line. You know, at times, he’s able to get to the rim because we’re overextended a little bit, and we’re not as heavy in the gaps as we would like to be. That said, you know they have Zakai Zeigler and [Santiago] Vescovi – guys that can make shots – and that’s what makes them who they are. I think that they’re as good defensively as they’ve been, and potentially even better offensively.”

His message to the team after Georgia’s loss to Tennessee

“You know a few. One is the fact that there’s a lot of room for growth – continued growth. And we have to get back at it tomorrow. There’re 15 more opportunities, then an SEC tournament, and if we’re good enough, potentially something in the post season. It’s a long process, and we have to get back to work tomorrow. We have to watch it, and then we have to flush it. And the next one will be equally as difficult, but it’s a great opportunity, as well. But that’s it. This is the SEC. The other message they want from me is, you know, all these kids get noise, positively, negatively, and individually, and let’s handle that with maturity because we’ve handled success that right way over these past 10. Let’s see how we handle some adversity. It’s been a while. But also, let’s not ever be thrilled about a loss. We played them close. We had a chance. The people that say, ‘That’s a great effort’ – that’s not what we are about. We’re trying to win those. Let’s be positive about the positive things that we did, and let’s continue to work to get better at the things we need to get better at.”

Georgia senior guard Jabri Abdur-Rahim

What went wrong for Georgia in the closing minutes

“We just didn’t do a good job of taking care of the basketball, and we struggled to get some stops late. Credit to them, they’re a good team, and they executed better than us down the stretch. It’s that simple.”

The impact of the home crowd

“It was very electric. We appreciate all of Dawg Nation for coming out and supporting us. We really needed it, and we’re going to need it the rest of the season. The SEC is tough, and with them behind us I feel like we have a really really good chance every night. I appreciate all the students for coming out.”

What Georgia learned in the loss

“I think we learned that we can play with anybody. We weren’t scared coming in, and we knew they were top five in the country and that they have really good players. We feel like we do too, and we feel like we have a good team. For about 30 minutes, we showed it, but we just failed to execute down the stretch. I feel like we learned that we can play with anybody, like I said. We have a good team, and we have talented players. We should be confident in that going forward.”

What Georgia felt only trailing by five at halftime

“We felt like at halftime we were down five and probably played our worst half of the season. We had a lot of confidence going in, because we knew we were going to play better in the second half. To only be down five and we were playing really really bad gave us a lot of confidence. That’s what sparked the run in the second half.”

Georgia Freshman Guard Silas Demary Jr.

What allowed Georgia to take the lead early in the second half

“Definitely playing fast. We get the ball coming back in. We knew we were down four or five points. We just wanted to preach on having a good second half because a few games coming out in the second half, we’ve been pretty slow. We’ve given up a lot of points in that first media, so we were just preaching ‘come out fast,’ and that helped give us that push in the first two medias.”

His takeaways from playing against a top-five team at home

“I feel like what we take from that loss, we can be in those big-time games. We believe in ourselves. We practice hard every day. I just feel like we can learn how to execute better down the stretch, learn how to not get comfortable at times because I feel like when we got comfortable, Tennessee took advantage of us, and we had a few mistakes. So I feel like not being comfortable and completing games.”