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
In the NCAA tournament, there are two things people love to see -- a Cinderella story and a team that is so powerful and explosive they look invincible.
In scouting George Mason, they had been shooting 33 percent on their 3-pointers all year and as much as 42 percent. We knew we had to control their perimeter shooting. I thought we did a great job of shutting them down and keeping them off-balance.
If your point guard doesn't play great, generally your team's not flowing very well. It's just kind of the way it is.
If you win games, it sounds like you have a better chance of getting into the tournament and getting a higher seed. And if you lose games, chances are you may not get in or get a bad seed.
In my opinion, they are a better team this year than they were a year ago watching them on film. I would say that our basketball team is totally different.
Because the game was close, our weaknesses got magnified. We had the same weaknesses against Kentucky, but when you win by 17 ... you have a tendency to look past all the mistakes and focus on all the exciting plays.
He's probably never going to get to a point where he feels great the rest of the season. But I think his confidence level is high. It's good to see him take the amount of shots he took. He put up 11 3s on the road. It was great to see him confidently shoot the basketball and it was great to see him move to the next shot, even when he missed a couple in a row.
He's really made a poor choice, hasn't he?
I don't really see too many weaknesses with those guys.
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.
I don't know if we're going to be a team that has anyone that's going to get 18, 19 or 20 points a game. What we have to do is be a team that has four or five guys averaging 10 to 15 points a game.
I don't know if they will. Like I said, we have to go through this ... I'm not really concerned. For me, it's about the growth and development of our team and our kids getting better.
I don't know if he has any weaknesses. He understands how to play the game. He can shoot, he can take you off the dribble.
I don't know if I've babied him or not. But it probably wasn't fair to evaluate him because he really was injured his first two years.