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
Sometimes when you win, people think it's all easy. Our guys have had to grind out games. Our guys have had to find ways to make plays in games.
Self-inflicted wounds. I knew it was going to be this kind of a game. I told our team we're going to have to grind it out and win ugly.
That's one of the things we talked about with our guys. How are we going to respond when we don't shoot well? Here was a night where we didn't shoot the ball well. This was a game where we had to grind it out and find a way to win.
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 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.
For us, it was a game we had to grind it out. It wasn't always our style of play. ... Tonight was about consecutive stops and defending the 3-point line. They shot 19 percent from the 3-point line and 39 percent from the field. That was the difference.
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.
We missed so many easy baskets around the rim at first. We did a much better job in the second half of getting the ball inside and rebounding. As a coaching staff, we have to keep our guys upbeat and not let them get frustrated.
We missed a lot of easy baskets and missed a lot of opportunities. We had decent looks and couldn't convert in a lot of situations.