UGA men’s basketball student-athlete Jordan Harris reflects on his time in Athens with the Hoop Dogs, a journey he has shared with fellow teammate and senior Tyree Crump, in a pregame interview from Tuesday afternoon.
Harris and Crump both came to UGA as part of the Hoop Dogs’ 2016 class under former head coach Mark Fox, but they have a relationship through basketball since before coming to Athens to college.
“You’ve got to think, we’ve been going through stuff since we were kids. I’ve known Tyree forever,” said Harris. “He grew up without a dad, so he’d always go through rough patches with that. That’s been happening since we were kids, so coming here there have been a lot of ups and downs but we were able to get through it because of our upbringing.”
Was Harris one of the reasons that Crump came to Georgia? Were they a “package deal?”
“Yeah, for sure. Actually he wanted to go to Florida State because we were about 30 to 40 minutes from Tallahassee. He really wanted to go there, but I was like, ‘No, we’re going to Georgia.’ We wanted to be a package deal. I kind of talked him out of going there and coming here. I think that was a great decision for us.”
Harris opened up and shared what Crump’s relationship means:
“We appreciate it a lot. I love him. He’s my brother and I would do anything in the world for him. Anything. Just knowing that, I feel like he feels the same way about me. Just him being there for me feels great that you’ve got a guy that envisions the same things and wants to do the same things in life that you do. The whole thing is inspiring.”
Playing for coach Tom Crean the last two seasons, what has been the biggest lesson learned?
“Just knowing that you don’t get a day back, I think the biggest thing that has stuck with me and the biggest thing that hits home is he always tells us, ‘There’s never a day that goes by that you’ll be the same as you were the day before.’ I would say that’s true, you get better or you get worse. That was something big for me. I think that’ll be with my for the rest of my life.”
What does Coach Crean’s saying “There’s never a day that goes by that you’ll be the same as you were the day before” mean to you?
“When you look at it, you get better or worse. For example, everyone’s out there working. Everyone’s trying to prove something. If you sit around and take a day off, you get worse. If you take advantage of the day, you get better. It’s one or the other, there’s no in-between. The world is full of average people, he tells us that all the time. He just tries to make us reach because you never know what you have inside of you.”
Thoughts on freshman Anthony Edwards’s time at Georgia?
“He’s a stud. He’s a great basketball player, but he’s a great person also. He’s young. Just having the time with him has been good. We’ve been able to learn from each other. I hope that I had an impact on him while he was here. I think some of the things off the court he really learned things from me as a person. He’s a great kid and he’s got a really, really bright future.”