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
I can't live their lives for them. They could just as easily get hurt doing something on the court.
You guys get more interested in all the details. All I know is that the guy's got a hurt shoulder. How it happened doesn't really make a difference. Maybe it was defective spokes or maybe he needs training wheels, I don't know. I just know he slipped off his bike.
That's something we'll have to look at on film. You look at the last two minutes of the game but sometimes you don't look at how it got to that point. The offensive rebounds Tennessee had in the second half really hurt us.
They outplayed us, outperformed us and hurt us in the backcourt. You have to give them credit. They are a quick, explosive team. They rebound well. We are going to have to play a whole lot better than we did in Columbia to have a chance to win.
If it were something where he was riding a motorcycle and he was popping some wheelies and he got hurt, than maybe I would be a bit more concerned. It was just a freak accident.
I'm just a big believer that when guys are injured or hurt, if they elect to play, there's a certain expectation they have to uphold. And if they can't uphold that expectation, I'm totally fine if they sit out.
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.