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
Tonight was about consecutive stops, and we guarded the 3-point line. If you want to look back and go to a key thing of why we lost three games in a row, check the 3-point line ... that's why we lost.
We felt like Darrel Mitchell was the key to their team, so we tried to run at him and trap him as much as we could. When he gets his 18 or 19 points, everything else falls into place.
They're a great help team. They really rotate to each other. One of the big keys in defense is a lot of times guys are afraid to leave their man and give help because they're worried about the next guy rotating to their man.
I thought the key to the game was the three-point line. They were shooting 32 percent for the year but shot 42 percent in the tournament. We knew the three-point line would be critical.
He is the whole key to their team. When he gets his 18 to 19 points, everything else seems to fall into place.
Statistically, that was the key to the game. We shoot 49 percent on the road, you're not going to get much better than that.
I didn't think our guards did a very good job of blocking out. There were a couple of key situations in the game where our guards didn't even attempts to block out.
George Mason has been playing great. But I thought the key to the game was the 3-point line. That was one thing missing from what people were talking about.
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.