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
Maybe we can get him a rocking chair or something.
Lee might be one of the best shooters I've coached, but what he doesn't get enough credit for is his ability to defend on his perimeter. He's probably our most consistent defender in terms of keeping guys in front of him and challenging shots.
Lee is one of those guys who understands scouting reports, schemes and how we are guarding. You can be rest assured that he is going to follow everything to the minute detail of what he has to do. So, forget about the shooting part of it, we have just lost maybe our best overall defender.
Lee gets a lot of credit for his perimeter shooting. Forget about the shooting part of it, we've just lost maybe our best overall defender. Lee is our most consistent, most disciplined, best defender.
Lee fell off his bicycle, that was pretty much it. That's all it really is, no car accident or anything like that. It was a freak thing that I feel bad about for Lee, but we've got to try to get him back as soon as we can.
One of the biggest things to stop is momentum. There are always teams that can get on a roll. Some people say that if you have won 15 games in a row, it's good to take a loss into the (NCAA) tournament. Other people say that if you lose a game, your confidence level is lower, that you are not going into the tournament playing your best. I always say that just because you lose, you can still play well. You can get beat by a better team.
I was really so proud of the way they fought their way back to tie the game up. . . . But there is a huge difference between Tennessee and ourselves.
I was shocked and happy that we were tied.
I wouldn't say we're a loose team as much as we're a confident team.
I wouldn't classify our team with the way we play defense as a shot-blocking team. I think one of the things you always leave yourself vulnerable to, any time you have big people leaving the floor, is offensive rebounding and foul trouble.
I would do whatever I could to help Major Parker. I'd recommend him for another job to anyone. We have all made mistakes in our lives.
When I looked at it, I thought it was pretty serious. That's something that we'll have to be careful with. We have an off-day (Sunday) and then we'll re-evaluate it.
No one likes losing, but it's great for our basketball team to go through this. It is great because they need this. I really believe the difference was our experience as a basketball team in relation to their experience.
When you can start something from scratch and build it up to win a championship, that's something special.