WHAT: West Georgia at Georgia (exhibition)

WHERE: Stegeman Coliseum

WHEN: Thursday, 7 p.m.

ADMISSION: FREE

Tom Crean’s inaugural season as head coach of the Georgia basketball season figures to be a season-long learning process for coach and players alike.

Step 2 in that journey takes place Thursday night at Stegeman Coliseum when the Bulldogs play their second exhibition game against visiting West Georgia.

“The thing I want to do tomorrow is not worry about the things that we don’t have, over-worry, or be concerned about all the different things that the team does. There are things they do that we want to make sure we get ready for,” Crean said Wednesday. “That’s the most important thing for us right now: things with personnel, some things with play, and at the end of the day, just going out and having them play just as instinctively as they can and hopefully make a jump from the last time we played against UAB.”

The Bulldogs beat the Blazers two weeks ago in Birmingham, 56-54, in a game that saw Georgia bounce back from a five-point deficit late in the contest.

Sophomore forward returner Rayshaun Hammonds led the team in points with 13, followed by junior Tyree Crump, sophomore Nic Claxton, and freshman Jojo Toppin with eight points each.

“We’ve been fine-tuning a lot of things,” Claxton said. “Whether it’s rebounding, playing downhill, making smart reads with the ball, there’s a lot we have to work on. Tomorrow we’ll be showcasing that.”

Getting the players in step with the offense the team will ultimately run is currently Job One.

The Bulldogs open the regular season Friday, Nov. 9 against Savannah State.

“Without getting too technical with this, we’ve got a lot of different things we’re trying to do, but it’s got to morph into things they’re comfortable with early, and then we need to continue to grow during the season,” Crean said. “I don’t think it’s going to be a shock to me that we’ll improve a lot as the year goes on. We’ll add more as the year goes on, and we’ll probably get better with understanding those things. Right now, it’s a balancing act of me pushing them, me pushing them to be accountable for things right now, running our plays, and for them being able to get it and be able to play at game speed.”