For Mike White and his now-complete staff, it’s back to the basics this year in Athens. Instead of looking at the big picture and discussing it daily, the Georgia Bulldogs are going to see where putting their heads down and going to work takes them in 2024-25.
“We’ve always focused on being process-driven and staying in the moment. There are a ton of cliches, but it’s something that’s been really important to me that I’ve really, really believed in and challenged our entire program with year in and year out,” White told members of the University of Georgia Athletics Association Board of Directors last week at their annual spring meeting. “Today for Georgia men’s basketball is about the guys that are at home getting rest and spending time with their families and the guys that are in the gym today having the best workout they possibly can have, and then on June 2 or 3 or 4 when we have our first team meeting, it’s about that day, and then it’s about that next workout and just staying in that moment and being process-driven. Last year was the first year I got away from that in about a decade.”
White would explain why that was. According to him, Georgia’s team of nine newcomers including five transfers had a ‘big dance or bust’ mindset. It’s not necessarily a bad thing with a team that’s capable of getting there, and the Bulldogs had moments they showed they certainly could compete with the best of them, but on the whole, it led to disappointment when out of the NCAA Tournament picture by the time bracketology season rolled around. Not coincidentally, the team struggled, losing nine of ten from January 27 to March 2. The wind of a 10-game win streak and a 4-2 start to SEC play had sailed. Without a spot in March Madness, it seemed like a failed experiment from White and his staff.
“It’s always been about instant gratification, it’s always been about quick results in our sports – especially now with NIL, with the ability to transfer and become eligible immediately elsewhere in the portal – so we experimented with the concept of ‘we’re getting to the NCAA Tournament this year, period. We’re going, done,’ and we talked about it every day. In my opinion, it backfired a little bit,” White added. “It’s something I want to get away from this year. I want to get back to being the best team in the country in today’s practice, and that’s it. The results will take care of themselves.”
Georgia did manage to rally at season’s end, and it came from a change in putting effort back into being the best on that individual day. Freshmen Silas Demary, Blue Cain and Dylan James were in the starting five, focusing on their development, and seniors Noah Thomasson and Russel Tchewa were playing to extend their careers. Others bought into the idea, and the results came with it. After making the postseason for the first time since 2017 with an appearance in the NIT, UGA took the opportunity and ran with it all the way to the semifinals in Indianapolis, beating Xavier, Wake Forest and Ohio State to get there.
In the process, Georgia won its 20th game for the first time in eight campaigns. The Bulldogs’ strong finish has given White and his staff momentum entering an important offseason for them. Although it’ll be a largely new-look team once again, they’ve got the three key freshmen returning for their sophomore seasons and have added talented pieces around them, both from the Class of 2024 (No. 9 ranked nationally) and the transfer portal (On3’s No. 6 group of portal additions). Georgia signed five-star plus+ power forward Asa Newell along with a top-50 prospect in Somto Cyril as well as transfers De’Shayne Montgomery (Mount St. Mary’s), Justin Abson (Appalachian State), Dakota Leffew (Mount St. Mary’s), RJ Godfrey (Clemson) and Tyrin Lawrence (Vanderbilt).
“I’m excited to get back to practice this year in a couple of weeks. I really am. Couldn’t be more excited, am as driven as I’ve ever been, as focused on summer practices as I’ve ever been because I think we’ve got a chance to be very good,” White said. “We talked about the metrics earlier and the improvements from year one to year two and from the previous staff to the end of year one. We’re anticipating significant improvements in year three. I feel like we’ll be more athletic than we’ve been in a long time at the University of Georgia. We’ll be able to clean up mistakes defensively, any mistake we make, by having some rim protection and shot blocking. We’ll be much better on the offensive glass, overall rebounding, overall defensively, scoring it on the interior, our depth and the talent infusion here over the last couple of years. We’ve flipped over half of our roster in the spring. I’m appreciative of the guys I’ve had a chance to coach over the last two years, but I’m super excited to coach these young men though starting next week.”
“The overall goal at the University of Georgia is win a national championship and get to tournaments, but we’ve got to continue and go back to 100% of the time just talking about the process rather than, ‘We are going to the Tournament,'” White added. “When you hit adversity in the SEC, sometimes — again, in today’s day and age with the ability to, ‘Hey, two months from now, mentally as a 20-year-old that’s not getting out of this exactly what I want to get out of this, I can jump in the portal,’ and on Jan. 15 after your second straight loss, it might be a little bit easier to have one foot in that portal mentally as opposed to let’s just have an incredible practice today. Let’s focus on the next one. We’re getting back 100% to process-driven.”
Georgia athletics director Josh Brooks is on board with the plan too. While he also has big hopes for the Bulldogs this coming season, he’s realistic and knows Rome wasn’t built in one day.
“Everyone has a different approach and how they focus each day. I like to focus on just getting better each day. You’ve always got goals. I’ve got goals to win championships in every sport but you’ve got to be realistic in thinking about what you can control today. Today, on this day let’s get better today and then the results will come. So I do like that process of just focusing on getting better each day,” Brooks said about White’s approach. “I think he’s done a tremendous job of building. You have to think where we were when he got here. You can look at all the data from KenPom, to NET rankings to where we were when he got here, where we were after last year, where we were after this year. We just want to see continued growth. I think we’re all very excited with the additions from the portal, with the additions from high school kids. I feel we have a very talented roster and now it’s just time to go to work and get ready for next year.”
Georgia begins summer drills next week ahead of a 2024-25 season in which it’ll play 12 of its 18 SEC games against teams that made the NCAA Tournament this past season. Also on the docket for the fall is a non-conference schedule in which the Bulldogs are expected to test themselves once again. With announced dates against Marquette and St. John’s – both in the Bahamas – plus a pair of matchups against the ACC to come from a rivalry series with in-state Georgia Tech and the second-annual ACC/SEC Challenge, UGA will play at least four power conference opponents before conference play even begins. A full schedule should be released in September once the SEC assigns dates and times to the already known opponents. Last year, UGA revealed its complete non-conference schedule in late August.
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