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
The thing that gave me the most enjoyment on the bench is that I've never seen so many players at one time wanting to see him do it, wanting to see him grab a rebound or get an assist or score. I've never seen anything like that.
I would like to enjoy what just happened for a while. This is a milestone in our school's history.
It was good to see those guys get rewarded out there. Our normal rotation guys enjoyed those guys' success on the floor.
I think we have a different group of kids. They're having too much fun and enjoy playing together too much.
I think we've got a different group of kids. I believe in my heart that all those guys will be back. They're having too much fun, they're enjoying playing together too much.
I think it was a great experience for our players. Obviously, it's hard to prepare for the White House on such short notice, but I think they enjoyed themselves on the trip.
Our guys have to be able to handle that pressure. There are a lot of distractions. There is a lot of tugging and a lot of things you have to deal with that are different from the regular season. I want them to enjoy where they are at because it is the pinnacle of college basketball to get to this point. At the same time, you have to keep the focus there and put yourself in position to play the best basketball.
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.
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.