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
There is not a big difference between the one or two (seeds) and the five or six (seeds). I don't think anybody would be surprised with anybody beating anybody.
They have a chance to be special this year, ... They should be, without question, one of the top five teams in the country.
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.
I thought there were times (against South Carolina) when guys created off the dribble and didn't find him. I thought he should have gotten up 10 or 11 shots. There was three or four or five times when our guys missed him. Our team has got to do a better job of recognizing when he's open and getting him the basketball.
I think sometimes when you win people think you're not challenged, but I don't necessarily agree with that. (Wake Forest and Syracuse) were won by five points, then we went to Miami and with two minutes to go in the game the score was tied. Sometimes people think if you win, it's been all easy. I think our guys have had to grind out games and find ways to win some games. I'd rather learn through winning than losing.
Going into this game, we don't have any excuses. We have enough to get out on the floor and dress. We're not going to be playing five against four.
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.
I don't know if we're going to be a team that has anyone that's going to get 18, 19 or 20 points a game. What we have to do is be a team that has four or five guys averaging 10 to 15 points a game.
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.