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
This game was all about the 3-point line and our ability to guard it. They made very, very timely 3-point shots. ... The great equalizer in college basketball is the 3-point line. It's the No. 1 stat I look at.
This could have been a game where he could have taken it easily 15 to 20 shots. He turned down so many shots it was incredible.
This could have been a game where he could have gone 8 for 11. He just didn't have one of those nights.
Someone told me his comments after the game was he put blame on himself. That's wrong. If anything I hold myself more accountable than I would hold him. The only thing I told him in that situation is not get ahead of himself and say, I probably should have called time out. That's probably what we needed to do. But hopefully next time he'll be able to learn.
Actually it's going to start next year. It's a five for one. We've got you guys coming here five times and then we'll come back and play you guys there.
Coach Pitino sat me and Delray down and told us, 'If you take one shot, we'll lose,' ... I don't know if it was radical as much as he was saying to us, 'Here's what we have to do to take advantage of the way Georgetown is playing.'
Coming out of high school, he was one of the few guys that could dominate a game without scoring, ... He was special. The way he played against us was the way people thought he'd be. If he played like that every game, he wouldn't have been at Villanova very long.
No question, we have depth issues with only eight scholarship players.
After practice, he'll thank me three or four times before we leave the gym.
They were kind of baiting us into it a little bit. I thought we took the bait at times.
This has been a remarkable run to this point. There was just so much uncertainty surrounding our season with people leaving early and guys having to step up.
This has been a great place. It's hard to believe it's been almost 10 years.
I think the one thing that should be talked about more is our guys' will and passion to win. They've really stayed focused on winning. ... We really didn't get a lot of breaks. We had to grind it out and find a way to win.
I thought Corey was very focused. I thought the most valuable lesson he may have learned tonight was he hit some shots early and you started to see him involved in other areas of his game. He was able to affect the game in a lot of different ways.