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
Rondo is one of the smartest point guards there is.
Everybody talks about the end result. You're playing for the national championship. I think the only experience I tried to use from 2000 was, you've got to want this night to last as long as you can. You've got to want them to put more time on the clock. You've got to love playing.
Everybody was worried about the adversity he was going to face if he didn't make shots. We didn't know the adversity was riding a bike.
Every minute of it. I'm thrilled, I really am. Hopefully with the job he's done, it will bode well for (assistants) Anthony Grant and Donnie Jones and other coaches who have been here.
Every guy comes in and thinks they're going to play 40 minutes, and after the first game when they don't play as much as they want, you've got to be able to address it and get guys to accept their roles. If selfishness creeps in, teammates can sniff that out pretty quickly. Then all of the sudden the barriers of trust get broken down.
At the time, it did bother me but as I've gotten older in this business I realize there can be a lot of negativity and things said. I take a lot of pride in trying to build a program.
Did I think I would be here for 10 years? You never know. You almost have to go one year at a time and try to do the very best job you can. . . . It's very hard to stay at a place a very, very long period of time.
Corey was a definite spark for us at the start of the second half. He made a couple baskets to get us going and he did some good things defensively.
Corey's ankle has not healed at the rate we would have liked. He has not been himself. When he'll be 100 percent, I don't know.
Corey just didn't have it today. And it's hard to expect him to have it when you don't practice for two days.
Corey had a very good game shooting the basketball.
You look at Al Wednesday night and today, it's two different players. He accepted the responsibility. I respect him so much for that.
We did a pretty good job of staying down and timing it.
We did a much better job moving the ball inside out in the second half.