the incoming players<\/a>, too.<\/p>\n\u201cI like our depth, I like the balance in terms of the classes, (and) this will be a much older, much more experienced team than a year ago,\u201d said White, who will begin offseason workouts next week with what will be his fourth UGA team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like the three freshman we\u2019re bringing in complemented by the five guys we got out of the portal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saint Mary\u2019s transfer guard Jordan Ross is a sure-fire impact player, as is BYU transfer forward Kanon Catchings.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe two areas we improved the most, at least on paper, are 3-point makes and percentages based on career numbers, and assist-turnover ratio all take a major jump positively,\u201d White said. \u201cHopefully we can rebound it as well, and be as good defensively, but be a little bit different.\u201d<\/p>\n
Georgia loses projected first-round pick Asa Newell and point guard Silas Demary Jr., who wound up transferring to UConn.<\/p>\n
But as White noted, next season\u2019s Bulldogs will be getting up and down the floor a lot more.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll be smaller, we\u2019ll be faster, but those two offensive categories (3-point shooting and assist-turnover ratio) will be significantly improved,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ll be in the open floor more, we\u2019ll push tempo a lot more, we won\u2019t play as big, we\u2019ll play smaller lineups, four guard lineups, and lineups where four guys can shoot it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf some of these younger guys can make a jump this fall, than we can play five guys on the perimeter a little bit. We\u2019ll be a better passing team and be a better shooting team.\u201d<\/p>\n
White said incoming freshman Jacob Wilkins, son of UGA and Atlanta Hawks legend Dominique Wilkins, has already caught his eye.<\/p>\n
\u201cJacob Wilkins, we\u2019ve all seen videos of him, and his highlights are really high,\u201d White said. \u201cLike his father, just a really talented, high-ceiling guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
White also talked up his coaching staff, which he believes will get an immediate boost from the addition of former Florida Atlantic assistant Todd Abernathy <\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a guy that coached in the SEC, he\u2019s a former All-SEC player, he\u2019s coached in the Final Four,\u201d said White, who was Abernathy\u2019s position coach for three years at Ole Miss. \u201cHe does a really good job with recruiting, player development and scouting \u2014 but the international (recruiting) piece is a strength and is unique for him, and it\u2019s coming more and more into play in today\u2019s landscape.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we have momentum going into next season.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. \u2014 Georgia basketball coach Mike White kept using the word \u201cmomentum\u201d on Tuesday, and a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[1619,7,217,2397,2561,231,772,1544,1116,4259],"class_list":{"0":"post-61451","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-ajc-freelancer","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-college-basketball","11":"tag-georgia","12":"tag-mens-basketball","13":"tag-ncaa","14":"tag-ncaa-basketball","15":"tag-ncaab","16":"tag-sec","17":"tag-south-carolina"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114585474394047146","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}