Georgia Basketball Pregame Quotes Prior to Game vs. George Mason

PRESS CONFERENCE VIDEOS

Coach Crean

K. Oquendo

Head Coach Tom Crean:
On Covid-19 across the country and reaching out to other teams…
"I know we have. I haven't personally, but I know we're on top of that. John Bateman does a fantastic job of that. The most important thing you can do is keep taking care of yourself and your own program. As coaches, we took the booster (shot) a week ago. A majority of our players took the booster the other day. I believe everybody that we have on our roster right now, playing-wise, has been vaccinated. But, at the same time, you have to be very precautionary. Obviously, the trepidation is that kids all across the country, no matter the sport, will be going home for a few days. I think our doctors… and again this led by Ron Courson, across the street. What Lance Schuemann learned. We have people talking to the NBA in here on our staff. We have people that are talking to the NFL. What are they dealing with, so we can make sure we are taking every step we can. We try to follow it, without getting paranoid, but at the same time, you try to be very cognizant of the steps that you need to take. Not bring panic to it, but bring awareness. Keep making sure we are doing everything we can do to make ourselves safe, in the right situation, and deal with it as it comes."

On George Mason…
"They are battle-tested. I think Kim English has done a fantastic job. He was a very good player. He coached at Tennessee last year. An outstanding coach. I'm not even going to call him a young coach, I know he is, but he is an outstanding coach with a very good staff. Dennis Felton (former Georgia basketball head coach) is on that staff. They have a very good staff. They have won on the road. They are coming off of a win. They move the ball extremely well. They are very efficient offensively. They shoot the three, a lot of threes. They can mix their defenses. They are a very good Atlantic 10 team. It's going to be a very good battle for us. One, not only are going to play after being off for so long, but we're going to have to play without as consistent a player as we have in Jailyn (Ingram).

On adjustments after Ingram's injury...
"The good thing outside of today, and even yesterday, he had his surgery yesterday morning and it went very well. He has his surgery early, and I haven't talked to the doctors directly, but Lance Schuemann has, and everything we got from that was that they are very happy with how it went. We will see him tomorrow. I don't know how alert he will be, and he'll have to get through some things this weekend because he'll be on a lot of pain medication. He has been a part of this every day, even going into the day after we didn't practice the Wednesday after he got hurt Tuesday. His leadership is just fantastic and it makes you miss him even more because he is so caring. I'm really happy that the surgery went well, and I think what he has done, and he's not going to be able to do it as much right now, what he's done is he's helped the guys. He's helped Dalen (Ridgnal). He's helped Noah (Baumann). We are going to have to play different. Not wholesale differently, but we are going to have to do some different things. Guys are going to have to do more things like rebounding and getting to the rim. We are going to have to change our post-up outside of Braelen (Bridges). Jailyn (Ingram) was not only our starting four-man, he was basically our first back-up inside. So, we are going to have to find different ways to score in the post. We are going to have to find different ways to build some creativity. The most important is not the creativity - the most important thing is the confidence of the other guys. We haven't gone against other people, but I love the work that they've done. We had a boot camp mentality last week on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and we took Sunday off outside of what we did with the Boys and Girls Club and some film. We went Monday and Tuesday, and we came back yesterday, and it was average. We came back today, and it was fantastic. We've got to find a way to be consistent, and that's what is going to take a little while to get to."

On players who can step in for Ingram...
"I think a lot of people. We are dealing with a couple other injuries right now that have been sustained this week. I don't think there is any question about Dalen (Ridgnal). We were really projecting Dalen to really help us as we got into January, based on what he's coming back from. Injury-wise, he's getting comfortable and now he has got to do it earlier. I think Noah Baumann. It changes the game for us. Jaxon Etter has got to continue to do the multiple things that he does. He epitomizes 'Swiss Army Knife.' I think Tyrone Baker, Josh Taylor. Those guys have got to be ready to go, but I think the one guy who brings something defensively, not only in the post but on the perimeter is Ty McMillan. Jailyn (Ingram) did a lot of things, but when you take him and Aaron (Cook), those were two guys who, whatever you needed to be done offensively or defensively, they could find a way to do it. They could bail you out of a lot of jams. Braelen (Bridges) is getting better and can score at the post and get rebounds. But when it came to the defensive part of being able to guard anyone of the floor, it was Aaron and Jailyn who could do that. Now we have to find ways to make up for that."

On keeping the team's confidence high…
"Well it took me a day to get mine back up to be honest with you. A leader can't have doubts. Even when you don't know how it's going to go, the leader can't have any doubts and I don't. I don't know how we are going to play yet. We are going to have to morph into that a little bit because with the three-point shooting, with the spacing…We're taking out a 23, 24-year-old man that is incredibly tough and physical and can do so many different things. You just have to try and build the confidence. One of the ways that you do that is you work at it. You spend extra time shooting the ball. You're very demanding on the things that they can control but you are understanding on what they have to get better at as they build their confidence. Right now, we have to be committed to be being on that glass, we have to be. We have to be committed and even better with our talk on defense. We have to be better with our activity defensively. The things that we can control, that is what you have to be really demanding on and tough on with your team. But building the confidence comes from putting them in situations where they're ready and they feel that comfort level to shoot that ball or they feel that comfort level to make that cut. All the little things that go into it that you take for granted when you have a guy that is playing the kind of minutes that he was playing. I am very confident in what we have. Obviously, we are playing that we have a run coming up here starting with George Mason where we are going to get an opportunity to play a lot of games in a short period of time before conference play. I don't know how that is going to go but it is going to give us a chance to see where we are at and where we have to get better at."

#10 Aaron Cook
On the NCAA Tournament...
"That's the ultimate goal. Coming from Gonzaga, that was my first time being in the NCAA Tournament, as well, and that feeling of being in that tournament and environment was unreal. That's something that I definitely want to get back to, and that's something that I think this team deserves to experience. As far as we have come this season, with chemistry and understanding how to play with each other, I think if we do the right things, we can make it back to that point."

On adjustments being made after Jailyn Ingram's injury...
"One thing that coach always says in practice is 'next guy up.' Just because one guy goes down, we can't fold or not respond. We have to have somebody that is willing to step up. It might not just one guy - it might be five guys, six guys. The whole team has to make adjustments, especially with a player like Jailyn who can score, rebound, play defense; he did it all for us. I think it's going to be a complete team effort to compensate for his efforts."

On the recent off-days...
"They were definitely needed. Without him [Ingram] being in the game, it's going to be tough to figure out how we are going to score, rebound, and all other types of things without him. As far as the chemistry goes, just finding how to make up for those things, I think we are doing a really great job of figuring it out on the fly with the eight to ten days we had off. I think we will be ready tomorrow."

On what Ingram's injury meant to him...
"It means a lot. Like I said, J.I. is a really good player. He is a really good leader. He was stepping into his role very well for this team and doing a lot of really great things for us. We are definitely going to miss him. The rest of this season, and every win we get from this point on, is going to be dedicated to his hard work and everything he's put in for this team, along with P.J., as well. Those guys really sacrificed everything to be here. This is J.I.'s sixth year and P.J.'s fifth or sixth year, but, either way, they didn't have to come back here to play. They decided to do that, and it was a big thanks to them that this team is where it is. Every game from this point on is going to be dedicated to them."

#3 Kario Oquendo
On missing Jailyn Ingram and who might step up with his absence…
"We're definitely going to miss Jailyn on the court… Just because he did so much for our team. Emotionally, he made a lot of shots for us obviously. He likes to play defense. He can guard all five positions, but other guys are going to have to step up. We've been running Noah (Baumann) a lot at the four this week, and I think Dalen (Ridgnal) will step up a lot too."

On the adjustments during the 11-day break…
"At first we were kind of like, 'What are we going to do?' Now we have more of a sense of what we are going to do as a team without having Jailyn (Ingram) on the court. The 9-10 days have helped us. We came in, some days we scrimmaged, some days we did other things. We cleaned a lot of stuff up."

On what the last week of practice has looked like…
"We've been putting in a lot of new things. We put in some new plays, some stuff that will adjust us to not having Jailyn (Ingram) in the game. I think it's just a lot of stuff to make our team look a little different. It's been hard. It's not like, 'oh we are just going to take days off,' we have been going through it pretty hard. It's been good."

University of Georgia Athletics

Georgia Basketball Pregame Quotes Prior to Game vs. George Mason

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Tyrone Baker

Noah Baumann

Aaron Cook

Jaxon Etter

Jailyn Ingram

Kario Oquendo

Josh Taylor

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