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
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.
We had won 17 games, but going into tonight we were 0-0. I knew Duke had lost, but these are different guys. They are more wrapped up in trying to become a good team, to become better individually and really sacrifice for one another.
Not the 16 and 16 necessarily, but I knew he was going to bring it.
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.
Our guys were prepared and knew Sheldon was a good 3-point shooter. But I think there was a lack of respect for the 3-point line tonight by our guys.
I'm happy for Jordan. He's gotten a lot better as a basketball player, as I knew he would. He's a hard-working kid.
If you look at our last four to six games, everybody knew it was going to be the toughest part and stretch of our schedule. Our basketball team, when we had all that early success, I don't know if we've played against teams as talented as we're playing against now.
I knew both teams played sound defense. I thought whoever could attack better had the best chance to win this game.
In scouting George Mason, they had been shooting 33 percent on their 3-pointers all year and as much as 42 percent. We knew we had to control their perimeter shooting. I thought we did a great job of shutting them down and keeping them off-balance.
I knew this would be a team that would play hard.
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.