ATHENS, Ga. — Tennessee basketball handed Georgia its second straight loss Wednesday night, knocking off the Bulldogs 86-85 in overtime at Stegeman Coliseum. It marked the Vols’ second straight road win and their sixth straight win in the series.

Following the game, White discussed the poor last possession, getting dominated on the offensive glass and much more. Here’s everything White said.

More From RTI: JP Estrella Gave Tennessee Basketball What They ‘Need Him To’ In Win At Georgia

Opening Statement

“I thought we played hard. Really tough loss for our guys. We’ve had a couple losses where I’ve used effort and I’ve used like intensity and lulls and I’ve had that type of language just openly with you guys. Specifically our last game in the second half, just defensively was just horrendous. I thought we fought today. Really fought. Proud of the effort. Had some plays there late (in) regulation. We had a two-on-one. We had some some free-throw opportunities. They had some shots that they just made. (Nate) Ament is a handful. He’s getting better and better. 

“Twenty-four to four in paints is tough to overcome. Twenty-six offensive rebounds. When you give that up, it’s just tough to overcome. To the fact that we still had a chance in overtime, despite those numbers show you that we were flying around and doing some good things. Shot over 50% against one of the best defensive programs in the country, top-10 defense in the country right now, I’m not mistaken, maybe 14th, or somewhere near there. Had a few open looks from three that if they converted, maybe it’s different. Eleven assists, six turnovers. I mean, we did a lot of good things. If they get 18 offensive rebounds instead of 26, it would still be too many, but we would have walked out of here with a big win. So it’s been a big point of emphasis, really since the season tipped for us. We talked about it a lot. We’ll continue to stress it, to work on it. 

“At the end of the day, we’re not a great defensive rebounding team. That’s obvious. But certainly we can all give a little bit more and figure out a way to finish some stops, because our first-shot defense, was pretty good with a lot of those possessions.”

On Smurf Millender’s explanation going for a layup with 0.2 seconds left with Georgia down three  

“I didn’t even talk to him about it. I know Smurf was as down as anybody in the locker room after the game. And I told him, I told all these guys, I thought Smurf played as well as anybody on our team tonight. We all everyone in our locker room made mistakes during that game, including myself. We preach growth every day. If we had a quick two with Blue Cain getting downhill, we would have taken it in some time. You know, it’s big moments. It’s young people, right? I know late in games, with the clock running down, he’s made probably a dozen huge positive plays for our program, so I thought he was really good tonight. We’ve got to execute down the stretch a little bit better, of course. But I believe in Smurf.”

On the conversations in the Georgia huddle about what the final possession would look like 

“Yeah, absolutely. I just said it. We ran some action to get Blue potentially downhill to his right hand. And then we were running some some misdirection pin down toward the top of the key action with Smurf, which we’ve had a lot of success with him getting open ones, and they switched it. 

“They did more switching tonight. I’d hate to speak for Rick, but I think more so than they have in any game this year, which tells we were doing some good things, to get them playing a little bit differently. But they switched that. And then it came down to obviously, trying to make a play off the bounce and getting someone shot. Anxious to watch it. I think Kanon (Catchings) potentially had a decent look there. But when you’re late game, obviously, and it’s a big moment, sometimes stuff happens. I could have seen him, in his mind, if I asked him tomorrow, he laid it up, looked up, I see him potentially saying, ‘Oh, I thought we still had another six, seven seconds, I’m pretty fast.’ But just not the way it was. Again, their early defense against that action was was good to where we didn’t get a clean look with their switch, and then that’s what caused a little bit of chaos.”

On needing Jeremiah Wilkinson to be in the flow more offensively

“We like for him to, for sure. I mean, we would have scored better. But we just, we’ve got to take better shots. We’re coming off a game we took, we had very tough shot selection. And I say we, I’m not singling anyone out. There are shots, and we can’t take premeditated shots. 

“And I thought we had a group out there not singling out anyone, again. And you said in your question, I thought we had a group out there that probably the last, what 12 minutes of the game was pretty connected defensively and offensively, outside of a couple subs here and there. Quick subs and where we got that particular five back out there together, but they were doing some good things defensively. We were running and jumping in the half court. We were playing zone. We were obviously pressing a lot. We were zone pressing. We were just trying to throw a bunch of stuff at the wall to see if we could, at that point in the game, with about 10 minutes left. Hell, we just started switching everything, and they’ve got two seven footers out there. But the fact that we couldn’t come up with a defensive rebound, we figured, hey, let’s just try to muck it up and not allow them to run the actions that they wanted to run. And honestly hope it bounces to us a little bit on the defensive glass but it didn’t enough.”

On how he coaches the rebounding issues early in the game

“Yeah, we’ll watch a lot of them. But,some of it is, at the end of the day. If it’s one of our guards, they play two bigs, right? And so if you can’t turn them over enough and expose one of their bigs defensively on the perimeter, I mean, that was the matchup for us with both staffs. Then they’re going to get away with playing two biga, and they’re going to pound you on glass. I mean, in my guys defense, I got Jordan Ross trying to block out Felix Okpara at times, because we’re pressing and we’re switching, and our four is a guard. Kannon Catchings is a guard. And then we played Dylan James. We played a little bit bigger, I want to say we had a two or three minute stretch that maybe we continue to evaluate moving forward with Kannon at the three. But then how do you manage that with Blue (Cain) and Jeremiah (Wilkinson) and I thought Jordan Ross was really good. I’d like to give him credit too. Had a swollen ankle and was only probable to play. played hard as heck and did some really good things. And I thought we did a good job exposing the fact that they had two bigs on the perimeter. I thought Estrella and Okpara both did a really good job, though, for their size, the way that they can move. But that was part of why Kannon was so successful offensively, is we tried to get him in some closeouts. We tried to get him in some closeouts. We tried to get him into some ball screens. He knew we were going to call his number a lot, so he got off to a really good start playing with great confidence. 

“But then the drawback is you just get pounded on the glass and again, if it bounces to us a few more times, or if you can offset it a little bit, you make a couple more threes. We had seven offensive rebounds. If we get 10, we’re in business. We make a couple more free throws, we’re in business. So we were right there. It’s just, it’s unfortunate, but we got to get right back to work because we got a really good team coming here Saturday.”

On if he told his guys to only shoot a three-pointer on the last possession

“No, absolutely. The big decision as a staff, if you could take a really quick to do you take it? And we decided to take a really quick two. But it was only with Blue, as he was curling off that stagger and not knowing if they were going to switch it or stay with Blue. If you go back and watch it temporarily, got downhill, had a little bit of space, realized he probably wouldn’t be able to get a quick one, so he bounced out. We repinned for Smurf, and again they switched it out. So now we’re neutralized. Had no advantage, and at that point, a quick two turned into a long two.  But obviously all our guys knew, I think we just lost a little, lost a little track of time.”

On why Georgia guard “Smurf” Millender is able to make big shots in big moments:

“Huge plays. Ultimate confidence. … Swagger, toughness. I love him. I love coaching him. He brings it every day. He’s probably our hardest worker. He’s starting to lead a little bit. He’s grown a lot, too. Like, he really scored it last year, and they played a similar tempo as we’re playing right now, at UTSA. He’s just, as a junior, he’s defending and competing at a higher level. Coming off the bench, it doesn’t matter to him. He’s got no ego. He’ll be in the gym at eight tomorrow morning. I guarantee it. He’s sturdy. He’s tough.

“A lot of players at this level, you watch games on TV, and you watch us live, and you say, ‘he just didn’t quite have it tonight,’ or, ‘he didn’t look like himself,’ or, ‘he was out of character.’ And that happens. It’s prevalent, especially today’s day and age of 2026 with all the stuff these guys are getting and they’re young people. Smurf will be Smurf tomorrow, and he’ll be Smurf on Friday and on Saturday. Now he might go 2-of-6 instead of 4-of-6, or what have you. But he’s a stud. He’ll bounce back.”

On Tennessee winning the rebounding battle, 52-27, and Georgia guard Jordan Ross saying it was about ‘effort’ and ‘want to’

“No, I appreciate that. You know, I’m not afraid to disagree with what these guys are saying in here. When we go back and watch it very carefully, there might be four or five times where there’s a guard at the elbow and we wished he was a little bit closer to the rim, but a lot of those rebounds, we just weren’t getting. We just weren’t. I don’t mean to be negative about our rebounding potential. They’re just an elite — they’re the number one offensive-rebounding team in the country, and when they’re playing (Nate) Ament, (J.P.) Estrella and (Felix) Okpara at, you know, 6-10 and long, and 6-11, and 6-11, and the physicality, especially with Estrella and Okpara — and we’re playing four-guard lineups —  I anticipated getting out-rebounded. If it was even close on the glass, we’d be sitting here smiling. But by 25 is tough, and 26 offensive rebounds is tough.

“Our effort was better on the glass tonight than it’s been in a handful of games this year. We played hard, we flew around. We had hands on a bunch of those rebounds that we just didn’t quite get. I’ll tell you, I’m always honest with you guys, our effort defensively in the second half last week, oh, my goodness, that wasn’t us. That was an outlier for this team in terms of effort, our defensive effort at home against Ole Miss and Ole Miss was really good, and they’re a tough two making team. But we fought tonight. Our guys played hard. It was live in there. Tennessee earned it.”

On how pivotal Georgia freshman forward Kareem Stagg will be the rest of the season

“Yeah, you bring that up, and that’s probably something we’ll discuss tomorrow. Freshman, right? And he’s learning, but he’s very talented, and he’s a prototypical SEC frontcourt guy with vertical reach, an ability to move laterally at a high level, girth, skill level. We’ve played him mostly at small-ball five. He needs to be a four in this league, of course, which could allow us to move over Kanon (Catchings) a little bit. But then again, we’ve got to make some other decisions on those other guards. Do you play quite as fast, if (Stagg is) playing at the four and Kanon is at the three? That’s been our biggest strength, and that’s where these decisions are always hard. You know, it’s not simple, especially when you got 11 you’re playing, and a lot of it will be opponent to opponent, but Kareem, the message to him is just continue to work and get better, and your time will come. Who knows when you’re going to earn more opportunities, but he’s a talented guy.”