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
Our guys have to be able to handle that pressure. There are a lot of distractions. There is a lot of tugging and a lot of things you have to deal with that are different from the regular season. I want them to enjoy where they are at because it is the pinnacle of college basketball to get to this point. At the same time, you have to keep the focus there and put yourself in position to play the best basketball.
Our guys have really tried to work hard at it.
Our guys have done a pretty good job so far of keeping a level of humility and trying to get better each day.
Our guys were prepared and knew Sheldon was a good 3-point shooter. But I think there was a lack of respect for the 3-point line tonight by our guys.
Those guys, being seniors, they know how to rest during a game. We had to make them guard to make them uncomfortable on the offensive end.
We're blocking more shots than we have in the last several years, but I don't think as a coaching staff we're saying this is a point of emphasis for our defense. We don't want to be a team that's just jumping up in the air trying to block shots because there are a lot of things that happen that are not good if you don't block it. So we just have to be selective.
We got beat by a better team with more experience.
We are trying to build tradition. Kentucky's the one that has the tradition and we are trying to get there.
We had won 17 games, but going into tonight we were 0-0. I knew Duke had lost, but these are different guys. They are more wrapped up in trying to become a good team, to become better individually and really sacrifice for one another.
Our team battled through the adversity of the game. They battled through not shooting the ball, and we found a way, defensively, to win the game.
Our starters didn't play a lot of minutes, and it was good to see us score as many points as we did with those guys not playing. For our team right now, playing this midweek game before getting back into the (Southeastern) conference at Tennessee (Saturday) was good for us.
Our schedule has been balanced. There are generally times when you have to play those guaranteed games. You wonder what it does to the mindset of your players, but we've played on the road at Providence and Miami and up in New York against Syracuse and Wake Forest. I think we've been tested.
Our bench really did some good things, some encouraging things. That really kind of sparked our main guys when they came back in there late in the first half.
Our bench really did some good things, some encouraging things.