Opening statement…
“First off, our fans – our students and our Georgia fans – were so good, and you could hear them all game. You could hear them all game. They were great all game, but the last eight minutes, they carried us. Every time we needed something, our fans carried us. That’s a team, program win and not just the players and coaches but everybody that follows this program. I’m so thankful for them, thankful for the way the students are. They were there in force, and it will get even better. I told our guys, ‘you keep showing the way you can play, we’ll have the upper deck filled again here pretty quick too.” Very proud of our team, very thankful for the fans, and it was a great Georgia win.”
On how much this win did for the team’s confidence…
“We needed something good to happen for us. Brian Fish just said that, and he’s right. We needed something good because we’ve been so close. We had to get them rewired today a little bit too when it looked like Aaron (Cook) wasn’t going to play. This afternoon, when he wasn’t able to walk-through, I thought it was going to be highly unlikely that he would heal enough to be able to play tonight. Unfortunately, he didn’t. We had to have a belief because we’ve been close. We’ve had numerous games where we were close. Too many times, our wounds have been things that we’ve done to ourselves. Tonight, that didn’t happen. We’ve got a really good group of people who are learning leadership, learning commitment, learning what it takes, and it was a great step in the right direction for us to get a win like that. No question, it was huge because you can talk confidence all you want while you’re playing close, but you really don’t have a confidence until you come across with a win in a tough game.”
On the last two minutes of the game…
“That’s three Freshmen if you count Christian Wright. Jabri (Abdur-Rahim) is a freshman. Kario (Oquendo) is a freshman. Christian Wright is a freshman. Because of the Covid year, and Christian is a 20-year-old freshman, so there’s a maturity to those guys. They’re growing. Kario (Oquendo)- you can say this about a lot of guys, and I’ve said it about a lot of guys over the years- he’s truly just scratching the surface. For him to play that way tonight was impressive. Everybody delivered. They really did. They were ready to go. It was a play on demand kind of game, and you didn’t know if you were going to come out because of our shortage with Aaron (Cook). Christian Wright, I don’t think I took him out in the second half, and he just continued to play a really good game. We just found a way. We had a little trouble getting it inbounded, but that was more me trying to go to a certain spot rather than throw it deep. I was worried about throwing it deep because if they get the steal, it’s a layup we can’t cover. We have to get better at our side outs. I have to do better there to give them an easier path. We found a way to do it.”
On how special tonight’s win is among the others at Georgia…
“It’s huge you know when you start to look at victories obviously behind on average from what it had been in the past but to me when you are with really good people, and I’ve been very very fortunate to coach a lot of really good people and I’m just proud of that. These are great kids, they really are. We have a lot to learn, there’s a lot of room for growth here but I think people are seeing it. They’re really seeing it and if anybody was in our exhibition at Charlotte and saw tonight, you’d really see a difference from October 24 to December 1, so it’s coming but it’s special. It was against a really good opponent and my milestones have come against really good opponents which is kind of unique. But the leagues I’ve coached then and then the league I’m in now, every night’s a milestone game because of how good those teams are and our team has got to get ready for dealing with games like this every night once the SEC hits.”
On responding to the challenge…
“They did. We had a really good practice yesterday. I think the smartest thing we did was not do anything physical on Monday except lift weights and run the lactic acid out. We walked through. I gave them a break from me on Monday. I let coaches handle it, and all they did was walk-through and watch film. We came out yesterday, and we were sharp. We were sharp today. I knew right before practice that it looked very doubtful that we would have Aaron (Cook). They were confident. We made some timely shots. We got some timely stops. By no stretch of the imagination is this a game where we can look at it and think we played the best we could. We played the best we had so far. There’s a lot of room to get better, and we will.”
On the biggest players tonight that contributed to the win…
“This environment seemed even more energetic than the Georgia Tech environment and that was really good. Somebody that’s seen some SEC team’s places this is the best environment that he’s been in already this year so to me, the only thing that was going to hold Christian Wright back tonight was foul trouble or trying to over penetrate in that lane and make plays that weren’t there because that’s when he gets in trouble when he over penetrates and tries to make a play out of nothing that’s not there rather than keep the ball and get it kicked easy or if he gets into a foul situation. We don’t lose the game the other day if he doesn’t foul out. Hindsight it’s 2020 right, we had a very sick Aaron Cook whose much sicker now and he didn’t have his greatest day and we lost Christian (Wright) with 3:24 in the game I mean that’s the kind of thing that sets you back. Christian (Wright), Kario (Oquendo), Jabri (Abdur-Rahim), those young guys they are just totally scratching the surface on what they’re capable of but there’s a work ethic, there’s a maturity, there’s a desire and I think we have those kind of things that will get better and better and our older guys, Braelen (Bridges), Jailyn (Ingram), those guys did a fantastic job. Obviously, Aaron (Cook) when he’s healthy. We just got to continue. We never walk into any situation on a day in practice and say that not every one of them can get better and that’s what we got to continue to do and these guys are buying into that. We needed a win though to validate how hard they work, and we really did.”
On adjustments made during second half and what was said during timeout…
“I think we had something on and it broke down a little bit and Jabri (Abdur-Rahim) just raised up and made the shot. I only got mad at him once when he drove and he spun and he tried to shoot but Duren blocked the shot (6:00), like those are the shots we can’t take but other than that Jabri (Abdur-Rahim) played really well tonight and he’s coming, he scored 7 points last year or 8 points for Virginia. He’s had 20 and 15 in the last two nights so everything’s such a growth process because these guys are so new to this. I think the guys had confidence the entire night, I know I did and I think hopefully they can look back at me and see it and I know I was looking back at them and seeing it. When you can see it in each others eyes, I know that sounds corny, but man I’m telling you that’s real and those guys hung with it. We just didn’t want to beat ourselves with mistakes because that’s what’s been happening to us a little bit and so we were able to overcome that. Adjustment wise we made a couple adjustments offensively. We knew we could switch defenses more than what we had so not a ton of adjustments just making sure we didn’t over penetrate, we had to get the turnovers cut down. Kept two turnovers against them in the second half is a victory in itself.”
On getting the 400th victory…
“It’s fantastic. I just wish it could have happened against Georgia Tech. They were fantastic. I appreciate the announcement. I appreciate that graphic. I really appreciate getting to hug my wife and daughter and then my son after the game. This isn’t easy on anybody. We just have to persevere. It was a real honor to beat such a good team at home and have it be the way it is with that kind of force and energy from our fans.”