UK ATHLETICS COMMUNICATIONS AND PUBLIC RELATIONS MEN’S BASKETBALL GEORGIA-UK GAME JAN. 21, 2020 RUPP ARENA – LEXINGTON, KY. Georgia Head Coach Tom Crean

Georgia Head Coach Tom Crean


Opening Statement …

“First, I’ll say this about John (Calipari), it’s so easy to take that success for granted that he has here. Those young men get better and better constantly. What he does with their skill level, perseverance, togetherness, toughness, and getting them to buy into one another is really extraordinary. I know you guys see that on a daily basis. I’ve respected him for a long time, and I’m not just saying that because I’m friends with him, but I’m saying this because its mind-boggling how good of a job he does with them. That team just gets better and better. We tried to beat them, and we couldn’t. We were close at times. They don’t beat themselves very often, but I think that is a tribute to how well he coaches, how well he teaches, what he demands, and then eventually what happens, and I think you will start to see it now. Obviously, he has a huge personality, but the personality of your team comes from him because they start self-directing, and they start being a player of that team. I think that is what I saw tonight from them, and that is what we aspire to be. We are very young, but over the years what he has done has made teams better and better throughout the season. Don’t take it for granted, I know you see it every day there has been success in this program for decades, but it is really extraordinary what he does. For us, it’s tough because we really went to battle and I’m proud of the way we battled. I’m certainly not sitting up here feeling good about a battle, but that was a big step for us, and we had our chances. The bottom line for us we have to guard the ball better whether we are man or zone, and we have to rebound the ball whether we are man or zone. We did come to compete on the glass and they just got a few too many of them at the end. I just looked at the rebound numbers, and I haven’t even studied the stats sheet, but we just have to continue to learn. From where we are at youth wise, with this many new guys and young guys as we have and starting three freshmen, we have to go through things so we can grow into some things. That’s how I see my team right now. We went at it with them, but they are just an outstanding team and there is a reason why they are the class of what they are at college basketball, and there is a reason why he is the coach that he is. You get out there with him and see how tough he is.” 

On Kentucky’s defense on Anthony Edwards  
“(Immanuel) Quickley is a tremendous player. I mean what is he shooting 60% from three in the last five games. He’s quick he’s active, he’s agile, he moves, he can really guide, he’s got great feet, he’s got great hands, he’s got great quickness, and you add the size on that, that is a prototype big time. So, I thought Anthony really did some good things tonight for this environment and made some big plays. Some plays that obviously like any other night you would like to have back, but Anthony gets a lot of attention. The key is that they did a really good job. We were also able because they were face guarding at the nine and we were also able to get some baskets at other places. Anthony is the kind of player that he will understand that because he is such a good teammate. They were trying to take him away. Well, OK, let’s go create something for somebody else. That’s why we made the change at half time, and that’s why we had a little bit at the end of the first half. We took a couple of jumpers. Against some teams you can have a bad stretch. Against Kentucky your bad stretch needs to be minimal. Once it starts stemming into three or four concessions, they are good enough to take advantage of, and that happened to us a couple of times. Quickly is an outstanding player.” 

On what the message was at halftime … 

“Continue to do what we are doing. Cut even better, move even better. They are so focused on taking Anthony (Edwards) away, keeping cutting him, keep moving him, but also play off of that. If they want to take him away, let’s drive the ball into those areas and I thought Tye Fagan did a really good job in the first half so I decided to make that switch in the second half. Started to put the ball in his hands, take Sahvir Wheeler off the ball and move him and we got lucky. We got some good plays. We just had a couple of tough stretches and other than that we were right there. I was very confident with how our team was playing at halftime.” 

On the team’s morale

“It really isn’t, I’ll tell you why. It’s – tonight’s a decision night. When you go out there and battle like – and again there’s not moral victory. That’s not what I’m saying here. We brought a very young team into this environment. This – I know you see this every day, I haven’t been here since 2010 with Indiana. It is an incredible environment. And for a team to go in there and play that way it is like decision time, do I love to win, do I hate to lose? And if I do then I’m going to bottle this up and I’m going to keep getting better and better. If I was in, and I just played hard and man, it was Kentucky, we haven’t been like that. We beat Tennessee a week ago, we went to Memphis a couple weeks ago. We’re growing up and it’s a hard league to grow up in, it’s a hard league to win in, but I’m not really worried about morale. If somebody really struggled with getting up to continue to play after being a battle like this tonight, I’d be more worried about my morale, I mean it’s – I couldn’t play those guys. I want to continue to see guys grow up because that’s what this game is.”

On his general assessment of this league

“One thing, I think, is I read so much less and watch so much less TV, so I don’t really know what people say. I would say this, the people who are saying that have never laced it up and played in a game like this or coached in this. there’s not very many league that aren’t very hard but when you get into the power conference level of something like this, it is really, really hard in this league. The rebounding is – we are fighting tooth and nail to be on the boards and they’re a dynamite rebounding team. its – I think because there are so many teams that have good rebounding, there’s teams that have dominate players, there’s teams that have outstanding coaches, there’s teams that get can a bit deeper with their depth, its real easy to have everything look the same and it all plays out as it goes. I don’t really have an opinion other than that I’m in this league and this a tough rebounding league in my 20 years of head coach that I’ve ever been in and I said it a year ago when I got here, about this time you realize at the end of year, it’s harder than even that.