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
It was good to see us score so many points without those guys playing so much.
It was good to see those guys get rewarded out there. Our normal rotation guys enjoyed those guys' success on the floor.
They choreographed all that. I had nothing to do with that.
They can play with anybody in the United States of America, and they've proven that.
They are very, very disciplined with the way they play defense. They help each other extremely well. They like to take you out of what you want to do. They're very, very physical.
They want to stay together as a group and they want to play together as a team. It was their decision.
They were really showing signs of becoming a very good team. The last 32 minutes we were outplayed, out-coached and out-everything by South Carolina.
They were unselfish. They wanted to win, wanted to learn. They wanted to work, and they wanted to get better.
We tried to make them score outside their offense. We gave up 10 offensive rebounds in the first half, but in the second half I felt like their frontcourt was fatigued.
We just recently had a function where we had to go into the student assistance fund to get players some clothes. Some of our kids come from backgrounds where getting a suit on short notice is difficult.
We just wanted to continually attack and mix up our defenses.
We just tried to continue to attack and mix up our defenses. I told our guys this game would come down to the same things we've been doing all year - unselfishness, making the extra pass and being able to defend and rebound.
We weren't good enough. We weren't built to make a deep run in the tournament.
We were playing for survival. I felt fortunate just going into the locker room being tied at halftime.