ATHENS – Let the Mike White Era begin. The Coach Abe Era, too.
Ready or not, it gets started tonight at Stegeman Coliseum as Georgia’s two new basketball coaches lead totally new teams on the court. In a rare women’s-men’s doubleheader, Katie Abrahamson-Henderson’s Lady Bulldogs will play Coastal Carolina in the first game at 6 p.m., followed by White’s men’s team versus Western Carolina at 8 p.m.
If you sense a lot of newness, it probably couldn’t get any more current than the Bulldogs’ basketball representation this season. Nine of the 14 players suiting up for the Georgia men are new, with six are transfers and three first-year freshmen. Ten newcomers grace the women’s roster.
Game programs will be available to help you know the names and numbers of the players you’ll be watching.
“I’m fired up,” said White, who left the Florida Gators to take on the Bulldogs’ rebuilding project. “I felt it the other day in the exhibition, just wearing different colors, sitting in a different place and coaching new guys -- all new guys, not a few. I’m sure for all of us, (it will be) a little bit emotional, a little different, a little bit more exciting.”
White succeeds Tom Crean, who was dismissed last March after failing to lead the Bulldogs to a winning record or postseason tournament in four seasons. The Gators never missed the postseason in seven seasons under White, including four NCAA tournaments and one Elite Eight run.
While Georgia is excited to see what kind of contributions they get from transfers such as 6-foot-10 center Frank Anselem from Syracuse and 6-7 forward Jusaun Holt from Alabama, the Bulldogs know what they have in their five returnees. Highlighted by Kario Oquendo (15.2 ppg) and Braelen Bridges (12.9, 5.6 rpg), letter-winners accounted for 60.9 of UGA’s scoring last season.
As for the Lady Bulldogs, they will ring in their 50th season of women’s basketball under only the third head coach of all time. Abrahamson-Henderson – known as “Coach Abe” for the entirety of her coaching career – played for Georgia under legendary coach Andy Landers during the program’s 1980′s heyday. As a head coach, Coach Abe’s teams at Albany, Missouri State and Central Florida have averaged 22 wins a season. Her last one at UCF won a school-record 26 games and featured Diamond Battles, the American Athletic Conference player of the year. The 5-foot-8, fifth-year senior followed Coach Abe to Georgia. She was named preseason All-SEC.
While the Lady Dogs also feature a lot of newness, for them it’s more about recapturing past glory than it is rebuilding. Previous coach Joni Taylor left the program for a higher-paying job at Texas A&M, but her Georgia teams had problems making sustained NCAA runs.
Coach Abe believes “lockdown” defense is the answer to reversing that trend.
“I know everybody wants to see pretty 3-point shots, but the teams that are playing in the NCAA Tournament and the teams that are playing in the Final Four, they have lockdown defense,” Abrahamson-Henderson said. “So that’s what we’re going to do, because we want to be a championship team.”
After Monday night’s joint venture, the men’s and women’s teams will go their separate ways. White’s Bulldogs will get a tough road test Friday at Wake Forest, play two more at home against Miami-Ohio and Bucknell, then will head to Daytona, Fla., to face Saint Joseph’s and either UAB or South Florida in the Sunshine Slam tournament. Games against Georgia Tech (Dec. 6) and Notre Dame (Dec. 18) in Atlanta highlight the non-conference slate.
“We have been going against each other since the summer, so it kind of gets tiring,” said Mardrez McBride, a fifth-year guard who transferred from North Texas. “But going against somebody else in another uniform is always exciting.”
The women’s team will play three more at home before hitting the road to face Georgia Tech in Atlanta, then will get Wisconsin and VCU at a tournament in the Virgin Islands.
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