Billy Donovan
Billy Donovan
William John Donovan, Jr.is an American professional basketball coach who is currently the head coach of the Oklahoma City Thunder of the National Basketball Association. He previously spent 19 seasons at the University of Florida, where his Florida Gators men's basketball teams won two NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championships in 2006 and 2007. Donovan has more wins than any other coach in the history of the Florida basketball program, and he coached the Gators to more NCAA tournament appearances,...
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth30 May 1965
CityRockville Centre, NY
I got choked up. When 19 years passes by and you go back, to hear the people cheering the way they did and to honor me that way, I was extremely humbled. I was shocked, taken back, and I didn't expect anything like that.
I get great pleasure seeing our kids enjoy the game. It's not about me or how young I am. But it's about the people you coach all the time, and I get a lot of pleasure seeing our kids celebrate.
I get great pleasure seeing our kids enjoy it, our administration enjoy it, our fans enjoy it. It's not about me.
If that happened, I'd be really disappointed in our team. We're playing against a team that really out-performed us a couple of weeks ago in Columbia. The final score says 6 points, but we were down by 15 in the second half, we were dominated in the game. I would hope our guys would be excited about having the opportunity to compete again and play again.
If someone wants to say, 'What Florida has done to this point in time means absolutely nothing... the regular season doesn't mean anything... the Southeastern Conference tournament championship means nothing.' That's fine.
He was almost in tears because, for the first time in his life, he wasn't getting an opportunity to play. I told him, this is going to come to an end this season. And when it does, your time is here.
He'll thank me four or five times walking off the floor. I don't expect to be thanked. That's the way he is.
He never has a bad day. He is an unbelievable kid. He has a great disposition. He's intelligent. And he's very, very enthusiastic.
He'll definitely travel. I'd say, right now, that he's not going to play.
He needed to have a game like this. I was happy for him. The last week or so, I think he's been doing some soul searching, just trying to find a way to come up with some answers to help our team. He helped out big-time tonight.
When he's letting it go and shooting with confidence like that, it makes us a different team. Some days, it might not be his night, but we need for him to continue to be aggressive.
We've got to go out and prove ourselves. I think it's very evident we're not a top-five or top-10 or top-15 team. We were given that. But we didn't necessarily deserve it.
He's a great coach. This was just a matter of time.
He runs, he catches and he alters shots. You just don't see a lot of players in college basketball like him.