LSU at Georgia
WHERE: Stegeman Coliseum
WHEN: 6 p.m.
RECORDS: Georgia 10-14, 1-10; No. 19 LSU 20-4, 10-1
TV/RADIO: SEC Network (Mike Morgan, Pat Bradley); Georgia Bulldog Radio Network (Scott Howard, Chuck Dowdle, Tony Schiavone); Sirius/XM (94-190)
Frustration has been a word repeated a lot during recent interview sessions with Tom Crean and members of the Georgia basketball team.
When you’ve lost five straight and come into Saturday’s contest (6 p.m., SEC Network) against No. 19 LSU 10-14 and 1-10 in the SEC, it’s easy to see why.
But with the season winding down, Crean disputed a notion that he’s approaching the rest of the year with the mindset of having nothing else to lose, he disagreed wholeheartedly.
"I don’t use that. I don’t have that mindset, and I’ve never looked at it like that. I don’t look at coaching like that,” Crean said. “I look at each game as its own separate case study of preparation. We get ourselves prepared for (the game), and then each separate game is a case study in a sense of, what’s it going to take to win it?”
Sophomore Nicolas Claxton, who seemingly has become the defacto spokesman for the team, admits there’s been plenty of frustration to go around.
"I can't lie and say there isn't,” Claxton said. “There's frustration going on throughout the team, but that's when coaches and leaders such as myself have to step in, just try to bring everybody together, just focus on the task at hand."
That’s why Crean said he doesn’t intend to change his approach, despite the grim outlook for the rest of the year.
“Maybe the closest I would get to that [mindset] is to say you throw caution to the wind, right? But I don’t use that term at all in my coaching,” Crean said. “I think it really bears down to if you’re going to play the game and your players are giving you everything you have, and you’re prepared for it, you owe it to yourself to give yourself every opportunity to win that game, no matter who’s in, who’s not; no matter how you’re trying to play it; no matter what you’re trying to do offensively or defensively. You don’t stop until the game is over."
Neither do you stop trying to improve.
Obviously, there’s still plenty the Bulldogs have to learn, and that’s why Crean says it important to use the time together to get better in whatever areas—team-wise and individually—that they can.
"Well, we’ve got to become a better team, right? That sounds cliche, but it’s really true. Teammates are connected more, defensively. They’re connected more offensively, when they’re moving the ball. You don’t let frustration show up in a possession. You don’t let your own mistake—we’re 25 seconds in and you let down, okay—and that affects the other guys, alright?,” Crean said. “The margin of error in this league is so small. So I think it’s more that than anything else, and you keep preaching that, time and time again. You show it, you coach it, you do everything you can, and eventually, if you’re working 'team' enough, then 'family' has a chance to come from that."
“But, that’s the bottom line—getting guys to be as competitive as they can be, put them in as many competitive situations in practice as we can be in, and just keep trying to build a standard, right? There’s a standard we want to be in. There’s a vision for the program, right? But each and every daym we’ve still got to try and find ways to be better, you know, no matter where we’re at. We’ve got to find a way to be better that helps prepare us mentally and physically for the next game. And I think we’ve spent enough time on that, and there’s not really enough time to worry about the other stuff. I think that’s where we’re trying to spend the crux of our time."
● Crean had had a lot to say when asked about the progress of Tyree Crump:
"He presses at times. He tries too hard at times, right, but they all try too hard at times, because they want to do well. So, you have to really work with that. It’s not, ‘Don’t do this, don’t do that.’ It’s us putting him in a many situations. And I’ve said this ten times in here: to get lost in the game. Well, everyone else knows he can shoot, right? We’ve got to do an even better job of getting him lost in the game, but then he’s got to do an even better job of screening, getting loose from that, being ready to shoot when he catches it, being ready in a catch-and-shoot situation; not have his head down when he gets the ball, but see the floor.”
That’s not all.
“One thing we’re challenging him on every time is to make more passes, make more passes, make more passes; it’ll be amazing how much more the ball will come back to you. I could say that about everybody right now, because the more we’re moving the ball with cutting and ball movement and body movement, the more open we’re going to be.
"But it’s not just one area of the court. Sometimes we get stagnant, because we don’t get the ball reversed during plays to the corners as much as we need to, and he'd be a part of that just as much as anybody else would, absolutely not in a sense—we want him to be confident, okay?” Crean said. “We just want him to be clearheaded on what’s there, and see it. When I say clear-headed, I mean, see what’s there. See the court. Don’t press, and don’t feel that pressure. Just for him to let it go and play, and some of his misses become very fundamental-driven. Whether he fades or falls back and doesn’t hold his follow-through—little things like that. So we try to help with that; make sure he sees it in the game and on film and practice it and get ready for the next one."
