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
You look at Al Wednesday night and today, it's two different players. He accepted the responsibility. I respect him so much for that.
We've had some good quality wins on the road at Providence and Miami, but our guys still feel like they have an enormous amount to prove. The mindset of our basketball team is we feel like going against Georgia is a lot to prove.
We'll have to deal with being ranked one, two or three in the country. These are the kids I would love to deal with those challenges with.
We did a pretty good job of staying down and timing it.
We did a much better job moving the ball inside out in the second half.
We didn't have the ball movement and the player movement that we had had in the course of the year. But I thought the defense and rebounding in the first half kept us somewhat close. I was pleasantly surprised that we were only down 11.
We had some better ball movement, some better player movement.
We had size on them and I felt like if he got it up there we could get a rebound and put it back in.
We have entered a stage right now in college basketball where 15 years ago, it would have been maybe totally no way George Mason could go to the Final Four. It just goes to show how many good coaches there are out there, how many good players there are out there. On any given night, anybody can beat anybody.
Even though the Tigers don't have the height, if you look at the size and girth of those guys in relation to our guys - they're more powerful and more explosive up front. I don't know if we had a physical advantage.
Fifteen years ago, there would have been no way a team like George Mason could go to a Final Four. It just goes to show ... how many good players are out there.
Everybody talks about the end result. You're playing for the national championship. I think the only experience I tried to use from 2000 was, you've got to want this night to last as long as you can. You've got to want them to put more time on the clock. You've got to love playing.
Everybody was worried about the adversity he was going to face if he didn't make shots. We didn't know the adversity was riding a bike.
Every minute of it. I'm thrilled, I really am. Hopefully with the job he's done, it will bode well for (assistants) Anthony Grant and Donnie Jones and other coaches who have been here.