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
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.
Those guys, being seniors, they know how to rest during a game. We had to make them guard to make them uncomfortable on the offensive end.
I wouldn't classify our team with the way we play defense as a shot-blocking team. I think one of the things you always leave yourself vulnerable to, any time you have big people leaving the floor, is offensive rebounding and foul trouble.
I felt like this year's team would be great to coach, a fun team to coach. They would be a team that would play unselfishly, play together. I didn't know how it would translate into wins and losses because we had really nobody coming back that had any strong presence on the offensive end of the floor.
We will need to be concerned more with providing help and doing things that will take them out of their offensive flow, because if their big guys get second and third opportunities it can really become a problem for us.
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.
It's early, but it looks as though Tennessee is a very good offensive team. I've always felt like they've had talent. Major Wingate and Andre Patterson are improved offensive players. They are a team that likes to play in transition, like us. Both teams are going to get up and down the floor and do what they like to do.
They're so hard to get the ball inside against. But I felt if we could just get the ball up against the backboard, we had a good chance at getting offensive rebounds. It was good to see Al and Jo play the way they did.
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.