UGA men’s basketball freshmen Anthony Edwards and Sahvir Wheeler share their thoughts on the Bulldogs big win over No. 13 Auburn on Wednesday night from Stegeman Coliseum.

ANTHONY EDWARDS

Edwards on celebrating with the fans after the win:

“Like you said, we have gotten beat up, but I went to the crowd to tell them that we can win some games, ‘so you all stick and ride with us.’ ”

Edwards on leadership in this game:

“We are all leaders. Everyone on this team is a leader. We all come together and listen and accept criticism if someone needs it. We take it and try to be better. We play like that because Coach Linehan told us that Auburn had the mentality that they were going to beat us in warmups. We just took it upon ourselves, felt disrespected, came out and played hard.”

Edwards on Rayshaun Hammonds’ impact in the victory over Auburn:

“When Ray puts his mind to it, nobody can stop him. I tell him before every game that nobody can guard [him] and to just go out there and play hard. Once he realizes that, no matter who you put in front of him, he can score. He can shoot, dribble, pass, and do all the above. Coach Crean does a great job of putting him in position to score, and I feel like Sahvir (Wheeler) does a good job of getting him the ball.”

SAHVIR WHEELER

Wheeler on the Georgia-Auburn game:

“Just glad that the crowd and home base is still sticking with us. A very special shout out to them. They still believe. They still are showing up. They definitely had a presence and an impact on the game. Thank you, Dawg Nation, and keep continuing to support us on that.”

Wheeler on having the lead and not losing like in the past few games:

“That is just having that experience of the past couple games that we have had when we kind of lost those leads. We came together and were like, ‘Hey, we have been through this a couple times now. We are experienced now. ‘ We have figured out, if we talk when they are on a run, it calms us down and makes us more poised. We make smart decisions and trust each other and that is helping us stick with that lead.”

Wheeler on how to build off of this win:

“As far as building off of this win, we have to know what we did well. You know, statistically, it was not our best night. We know that. We know why we got the win. We held them to even lower percentages than we had. We fought. We competed every possession. We talked to each other like Coach Crean has been wanting in the past. [We had] that communication [and] everyone stepping up to be a leader. We really did that tonight. If we can do that, I am sure our offense is going to come eventually. We will shoot the ball better, no doubt, [and] then we will be pretty hard to stop. This is a great building point. We are looking forward to Saturday.”