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
athletic changed clear happen jeremy met mind needed turn understood
Probably what changed my mind more so than anything else was when I met with (Florida athletic director) Jeremy Foley. In that meeting, it was very, very clear that he understood where things were at, and he understood what needed to happen to try to turn the program.
fortunate makeup needed played season time win
Sometimes, it's about players. The makeup of these guys, they've come into the season and played unselfish. We're fortunate to be 12-0 but at the same time have done the things that we needed to do offensively and defensively to win those games.
deal game issues needed people step
We all deal with issues and challenges. This is a game where we needed different people to step up.
boards defense defensive half needed played second shot
I thought we played well on the defensive end to only be down at 11 at the half with the way we shot the ball. As well as we played defensively in the first half, we didn't do the things we needed to on the boards and on defense in the second half.
ahead blame comments game himself hold hopefully needed next situation time
Someone told me his comments after the game was he put blame on himself. That's wrong. If anything I hold myself more accountable than I would hold him. The only thing I told him in that situation is not get ahead of himself and say, I probably should have called time out. That's probably what we needed to do. But hopefully next time he'll be able to learn.
causing giving good guys imagine losing needed shore taught three
Our guys needed to be taught why we were losing, what was causing them to lose. I wanted them to see this is what we're giving up, and we're losing in overtime, we're losing by two or three points. Imagine if we shore this up, how good we can be.
answers game happy help helped last needed soul trying week
He needed to have a game like this. I was happy for him. The last week or so, I think he's been doing some soul searching, just trying to find a way to come up with some answers to help our team. He helped out big-time tonight.
bed gone needed people stay
I haven't gone to bed yet. For me, there was so many people I needed to thank; and because of that I'll probably have to stay up another day to be able to do that.
basketball good guys impatient movement needed percent played player second shot similar tale
For our basketball team, it was a tale of two halves. In the first half, our guys were very, very impatient on offense. We didn't have the ball movement and the player movement we needed to have. We had good ball movement and player movement and we shot 57 percent in the second half. If we would have played similar to that and rebounded like we did in the first half, it would have been a different game. We couldn't put it all together.
focus level needed responsibility
The level of focus they needed to have wasn't there. I have to take responsibility for it, and we all have to take responsibility for it.
felt gave half offensive outside rebounds score second tried
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.
assistance function fund kids notice players recently short student suit
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.
attack mix
We just wanted to continually attack and mix up our defenses.
attack continue defend extra game guys mix pass tried year
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.