ATHENS — Tom Crean wants to be perfectly clear about living in the “Now.”
Sure, there are plenty of Georgia basketball fans excited about the addition of in-state commit Anthony “Ant Man” Edwards.
But Edwards, already a legend-in-the-making because of his decision to stay in state, won’t arrive on campus until before next season.
Georgia basketball is rebuilding under Crean’s direction in his first year as head coach, and the objective is to do what’s best for the program this season, even with the Bulldogs 10-15 and 1-11 in SEC Play.
“This is not about, ‘well, let’s see what we’ve got and let’s build for the future,’ “ Crean said following Saturday’s bitter 83-79 loss to No. 19 LSU.
“We’re building right now. If I’m going to preach to them to stay absolutely locked into the present, then that’s exactly how we’ve got to coach it.”
Crean pointed to the Tigers getting too many second-chance points and his team’s continued struggles with on-the-ball defense.
But the building blocks that came out of the tight setback could prove to be the most important area of progress all season.
“Competing, without question,” Crean said, asked what positives he would take out of the well-played game. “Not getting our heads down and continuing to play with confidence.”
The Bulldogs, for the first time this season, showed some bite after falling well behind a quality opponent.
The Tigers used a 10-0 run in the first half to take a 31-22 lead — the sort that put Georgia away in past contests.
This time, however, the Bulldogs players continued to battle, and fought to get back within four points at the half.
Six minutes into the second half Georgia was up 58-53, but LSU proved too dialed in.
The Tigers, winners of 14 of their past 15 games, didn’t commit a turnover in the entire second half of the game.
The Bulldogs, who have yet to play a game where they have committed fewer turnovers than their opponents, had just 11 turnovers in the game.
It was an efficient performance by both teams, to the extent that it was hard to distinguish the 11-1 SEC team from the program with the 1-11 league mark.
“I love our effort, I love their attitude, I love the way the last two days have been in practice,” Crean said. “Very confident going into this game. I would have been confident against anybody we played based on the way we practiced. We had really good practices all year.
“But the last two days were a little bit different and we’ve got to learn how to figure to build on them and move forward, because there’s no question we were ready to play we just couldn’t finish it at the end.”
Crean also thanked the Georgia fans on his Twitter account. Georgia has played in front of six consecutive sold out crowds at home.
Georgia isn’t in any position to earn an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament, and an NIT bid is appears very unlikely barring a miraculous win streak.
It appears the Bulldogs only chance for a postseason bid would be to win the SEC Tournament in Nashville next month (March 13-17).
There are just six games remaining in the regular season.
