‘Did not see this coming’: Georgia’s Mike White on NCAA Tournament blowout

The Bulldogs at one point trailed by 40 in the second half. They never led and flatly laid down to open the second half, as Saint Louis went on an 18-0 run to leave no doubt about who wanted to keep playing basketball this season.

“Really disappointed in our effort, starting with myself, that obviously we weren’t very prepared to compete at the level that I thought we would,” White said. “Did not see this coming. Tough way to end the season. Didn’t give Saint Louis much of a game.”

More striking than anything White offered after the loss was what Georgia guard Jeremiah Wilkinson, who scored 30 points with seven 3-pointers, said.

“We didn’t play hard at all,” Wilkinson said. “Turnovers, we’re not getting back. And, you know, I’m guilty of it a couple of times, too, but as a team, they got out and ran on us. And we couldn’t get rebounds, and they went and got rebounds. We were the bigger team today, so we have no excuse for that. We were probably the more athletic team, so there’s no excuse for what happened today.”

Thursday’s showing was so poor that it completely clouds what had been a remarkable season for Georgia. Few thought the Bulldogs would make the NCAA Tournament after losing Asa Newell to the NBA and Silas Demary Jr. to UConn.

Credit: AP

Credit: AP

But Georgia did just that, rattling off 22 regular-season wins — a program record for the Bulldogs. It was enough to make the tournament for the second time in four years. The last time Georgia went to back-to-back NCAA Tournaments was 2001 and 2002. The latter was also the last time Georgia won a game in the Big Dance.

The end stains the story of that journey.

“That’s not our standard, that’s not what we’re trying to build,” White said. “It’s not acceptable, the effort, it’s just, we’re in the NCAA Tournament. These kids have been preparing for this, some more than others, excited about this their entire lives. I remember watching the NCAA Tournament when I was 5, 6, 7 years old. And I’m blessed enough to coach a team in it, and to jog back in transition defense is unacceptable. It is sickening.”

Georgia is set to lose only two seniors from this team. But the Bulldogs will certainly have more departures than that, given the way the transfer portal works in college basketball. Georgia brought back four players from last year’s NCAA Tournament team.

“So many of these student-athletes playing in this tournament mentally might have a couple toes in the portal,” White said. “They might have a foot in the portal. They might have a foot-and-a-half in the portal. They’ve got communication with relatives, with former coaches and now with agents, right? So, first and foremost, where are we at with our roster? Let’s try to figure that out as soon as possible.”

White wrote on the whiteboard to play with joy before Georgia’s game against Saint Louis. For White, Georgia players and supporters of the program, Thursday was a joyless experience.

Looking ahead, White is not likely going anywhere, as he signed a contract extension that ties him to the school through 2031.

“The next step is we gotta break through, and to have to wait,” White said. “My gosh, I’m sick to my stomach that we gotta wait, potentially, for another year, to have this opportunity again. Because if you lose 90 to 86, and you had a chance down, and you did a lot of good things, and they just hit some hard shots, we were really connected, we were in character, you can live with it.

“But this one’s gonna be hard to, for me at least, to think about for a while. And that’s why I’m ready to get back at it, I’m ready for spring workouts to start tomorrow morning if we were in Athens.”