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 was getting frustrated watching balls go up from the three-point line, when those guys are standing 1-on-1 in the post with a guy 6-6 guarding them. It's hard sometimes. I'm constantly preaching to (Green and guard Lee Humphrey), 'When you're open, let it go.' Sometimes you have to change your thought processes.
It was the first summer he had to get better. It's been a progression for him. There were times his freshman and sophomore year when he got the ball in the post and he was just looking to pass it back out.
I went off pretty good at halftime. I was getting frustrated watching balls go up from the 3-point line when guys are standing in the post with a 6-6 guy guarding them. They finally got the message.
Our blocks in the Miami game came the right way. They came with our big guys playing good post defense, moving their feet. When someone from Miami committed to shooting the basketball, most of our blocked shots were on the ball.
If you do the same thing against those guys every single time down the floor, they're eventually just going to pick you apart. So we just tried to change. We tried to get some weak-side help sometimes. We got up in the lane to try to discourage post feeds. We tried to get around and front.
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.
We have to deal with what's at hand right now.