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've been in this league a long time and I never feel like the SEC is given its due. If you look around the country right now, there are leagues out there that are very top heavy, but there are not many out there that have the balance that our conference has. If you look at what some of our teams have done to quality opponents outside the league, it's pretty impressive.
You have to do a great job evaluating those kids maybe in the top 25 to 100. So we could (eventually) have some junior and senior classes.
Obviously as a freshman, without question he was not only one of the best freshmen in the league, but was one of the better players in the league. He's got great size. He can shoot over top of people. He makes every difficult shots.
What this goes to show you is that in our league, coming in with a team that was 1-4 against a team that was perceived as being a top team, we were basically manhandled today.
We're right back to where we were before the season started. We've got to be able to prove ourselves. I think it's very, very evident, we're not a Top 5, Top 10, Top 15 team.
When you talk about college careers and guys in the Big East, and you put not only their numbers and their stats, but add on top of that the fact that they have won as much as they have won, I think you can throw them in there with any guards that have played in the league.
They have a chance to be special this year, ... They should be, without question, one of the top five teams in the country.
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.