{"id":490270,"date":"2026-02-19T14:14:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T14:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/490270\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T14:14:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T14:14:07","slug":"cain-doing-a-bit-of-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/490270\/","title":{"rendered":"Cain Doing A Bit Of Everything"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By <a href=\"https:\/\/georgiadogs.com\/staff-directory\/john-frierson\/91\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"91\" target=\"_blank\">John Frierson<\/a><br \/>\nStaff Writer<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/georgiadogs.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/blue-cain\/9831\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9831\" target=\"_blank\">Blue Cain<\/a> smiles and shakes his head a little.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A lot of people have said that,&#8221; the Georgia men&#8217;s basketball junior said after it is suggested that he&#8217;s not just had more dunks this season, but more high-flying slams and other plays that show off an increased strength and leaping ability.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think I&#8217;ve always been able to jump pretty high. It&#8217;s just, I think this year I have had more opportunities to kind of show it. I mean, a lot of people have said that I look more athletic.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Whether it&#8217;s just opportunity or it&#8217;s opportunity mixed with the results of the Bulldogs&#8217; strength and conditioning program, Cain has done a lot of impressive things on the court this season. Heading into Saturday&#8217;s game against Texas at Stegeman Coliseum, the 6-foot-5 guard from Knoxville, Tenn., is second on the team in scoring with 13.3 points per game. He&#8217;s also second in rebounding at 5.3, second in steals (36) and third in assists (60).<\/p>\n<p>All of his numbers are on pace for career highs, and it&#8217;s not because he&#8217;s playing more minutes. He averaged 27.2 minutes per game last season and is on pace to match that this season. Cain&#8217;s numbers have improved because he&#8217;s improved.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I try to play a well-rounded game,&#8221; Cain said. &#8220;I feel like whenever I focus on the other stuff (besides shooting), the scoring usually takes care of itself. I would say I definitely have made a conscious effort to try to do the other things, and then just take what the game gives me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The game has given Cain plenty. As a child growing up in Knoxville, Cain dreamed of being a good player who could compete at a high level. So what would the 10- or 12-year-old version of Cain think of where he is now?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He&#8217;d think this was really cool. It really is, this is what he dreamed of; this is what he wanted. I&#8217;m sure he&#8217;d be glad to see that I&#8217;m still enjoying the game,&#8221; Cain said.<\/p>\n<p>While Cain often speaks quietly and gives off low-key vibes when doing interviews, he&#8217;s not always that way, teammate <a href=\"https:\/\/georgiadogs.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\/roster\/justin-abson\/9830\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9830\" target=\"_blank\">Justin Abson<\/a> said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s a great guy. He may seem laid back to everyone, but on and off the court, he&#8217;s a great guy \u2014 and a real funny guy. That&#8217;s my guy,&#8221; said Abson, in his second season with the Bulldogs. He&#8217;s funny if you know him, but you might have to get to know him a little better for that side of him to come out.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Cain is not only working harder than ever to be the best player he can be, he&#8217;s also loving the game as much as he ever has.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s still my favorite thing to do,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I really do enjoy playing basketball \u2014 all of it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Away from basketball, Cain spends a lot of time connecting with his family and friends back home. He also loves to play golf. When you spend so much time inside a gym working on your game, it&#8217;s very nice to get outside and do something very different, he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think it&#8217;s so peaceful out on the golf course, and it&#8217;s just so nice to be outside for a few hours,&#8221; he said. &#8220;A lot of my friends play, my father played, so I think it&#8217;s always a good time playing with them.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>When you grow up in an SEC college town, like Knoxville, going to school anywhere else can lead to a lot of comments and jokes from people you know. When you&#8217;re a student-athlete playing for a rival, all of that often goes up a few notches.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I might get little jokes here and there about playing for Georgia, but I think pretty much everybody&#8217;s pretty proud of me,&#8221; Cain said.<\/p>\n<p>As they should be.<\/p>\n<p>Assistant Sports Communications Director <a href=\"https:\/\/georgiadogs.com\/staff-directory\/john-frierson\/91\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"91\" target=\"_blank\">John Frierson<\/a> is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men&#8217;s Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: <a href=\"http:\/\/georgiadogs.com\/frierson\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Frierson Files<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By John Frierson Staff Writer Blue Cain smiles and shakes his head a little. &#8220;A lot of people&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490271,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-490270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}