WHEN: Saturday, 3:30 p.m.
WHERE: Thompson-Boling Arena, Knoxville
TV/RADIO: SEC Network (Mike Morgan, Dane Bradshaw); Georgia Bulldog Radio Network (Scott Howard, Chuck Dowdle, Tony Schiavone); XM (190)
Tom Crean wasn’t in the mood for hyperbole during Friday’s get-together with reporters. His team was preparing to board a bus for its trip to Knoxville, ahead of Saturday’s SEC opener at Tennessee (3:30 p.m., SEC Network).
Answers were short by Crean standards—short and pointed, with no patience for mollycoddling some of the questions younger scribes tossed his way.
With tip-off not quite 24 hours away, Crean already wore his game face.
"We can’t mirror in practice what we're going to see in them. They have a physicality and a toughness that we'll have to deal with,” Crean said. “Obviously, we're playing there, and it's a tough environment, I’m certain. They play with a tremendous amount of toughness and physicality and grit, and we're going to have to match that or we won’t have a chance.”
Nicolas Claxton was asked if this Crean, the one reporters interacted with on Friday, was the version the Bulldogs saw in their just completed practice.
The sophomore smiled.
“Yeah, I think he’s taking it to another level,” Claxton said. “We’re all adjusting to it. He’s taking it to another level so the players are going to elevate their game. We’ll be ready to go in Knoxville.”
As indicated by Crean, Georgia (8-4) will have to be at its absolute best to upend the Volunteers, winners of 16 straight at home and featuring a team with two of the best players the SEC has to offer in junior Grant Williams and senior Admiral Schofield.
Williams (6-7, 236) leads the SEC in scoring at 20.1 points per game, with Schofield right behind at 18.2.
“You can’t guard him with one guy. We're going to have to guard him as a team. Most importantly, their whole team is good,” Crean said. “They don’t have many weak points, so it isn’t about individual match-ups. It's about our team defense against their offense.”
Tennessee coach Rick Barnes, meanwhile, just wants his team to start ironing out whatever kinks remain in the Vols’ respective games.
“It's details, just simple details. Just simply getting your hands up, being active on the ball, trying to break the ball loose, get us out on the open court. A missed block out here and there when we've had a great possession, and one guy doesn't finish the possession and lets his guy run down the shot,” Barnes said.
“Our post defense has to be better, there's no question about that. We're allowing the ball to come in from the top too often and too easily," he continued. "Our ball screen defense—the last two games we had two of the worst we've had all year just with communication.”
Effort is tops on Crean’s agenda.
Although Georgia comes in as winners of five its last six, Crean knows his team’s intensity and effort need to start extending for the full 40 minutes, especially in games like the one against Tennessee.
“We just want to win the game. We just have to compete. They [Tennessee] don’t take possessions off. They compete at a very high level. They have been at it for a while, and they've been building their program for a while and they have a lot of traction in it right now,” Crean said. “We are just getting started, but we have to go in there and matchup in the sense of competition, intensity, and being on the glass. We can’t go in there and give them live ball turnovers, because that will be a disaster for us.”
