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
talent
So much of it right now has nothing to do with the talent level. It has to do with their makeup. It has to do with what they're about.
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It was a great, great college basketball game. Both teams had a chance to win. I think Arkansas is as talented as any team in the league. They have more experience, much more size and physicality than we do.
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They are a team that is as talented as anyone this year. They are an outstanding team. We will have our hands full at every position in this game. We don't have a physical advantage at all. It will be a hard game for us.
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Our margin for error is small. We are not more talented than any team we play against.
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As a coach, I can't put the ball in the hole for them. But what I can try to do is put them in the best position to take advantage of the talent level they have that they can make plays ... Right now, we have a bunch of guys that are unproven in that area so I'm going to try to eliminate any focus on them worrying about scoring.
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I have said before that we are not the most talented team, we are not the best team and there are always ugly moments in games. But you are always going to feel good as a coach walking off the court coaching these guys because they give you everything they have. Whether that is enough to win the game (against Tennessee), we'll see.
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If you have a guy that's talented but totally into himself, who never had to be unselfish a day in his life, it's really hard to change that mentality. Now we've got good kids who have been unselfish and have worked hard and gotten better.
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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.
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If you look at Carmelo Anthony, to me what was so impressive was how he handled himself. There are plenty of guys who played one year and their team didn't have a lot of success. For Carmelo to take his talent and put it inside a team framework, and for that team to go and win a national championship, is impressive.
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I don't know if we've played against teams as talented as teams we're playing against now. Playing hard, playing unselfish, doing all the right things, team-wise, is great. ... But it's not good enough to beat good teams.
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The greatest equalizer in college basketball -- it doesn't make a difference about talent or who's better than who -- is the three-point line.
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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.
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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.
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We just wanted to continually attack and mix up our defenses.