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 try to take teams out of what they practice every single day, whether through pressing, trapping, three-quarter-court pressing, through trapping pick-and-rolls, trapping the low post. We're trying to do things to disrupt the flow of the game.
The surgery went well. He wasn't at practice because he was dealing with so many things medically. . . . I'll probably have a better understanding maybe (today).
Corey just didn't have it today. And it's hard to expect him to have it when you don't practice for two days.
The one thing you've got to do with reading is it's something you've got to do every day. Anything you want to do in life, you've got to practice every day.
After practice, he'll thank me three or four times before we leave the gym.
My philosophy defensively is to try to take teams out of what they practice every single day.
I love our team, ... I love coaching this team. When I come to practice every day, I just love being on the floor. I just love their eagerness.
I probably won't start him. Lee is getting better and is progressing, but he probably won't start until he shows me that he can get through a full practice healthy.
He's never had a bad practice since he's been here.
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.