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 don't know if I would necessarily say we're just tougher. But we have the ability to play more physical and tougher than maybe we did a year ago.
I don't know if you do pressure, if it's going to necessarily make them shoot any quicker. I think what becomes important in playing them is your late shot-clock defense.
I don't know if we would have played them again, if the outcome would have been any different. They were just a better team than us.
I didn't think we could be 14-0 at this point.
I didn't think that Vanderbilt's game plan was to come in and back off Corey. I didn't think that Corey was being left open on purpose, I think it was through our ball movement. He got some looks, and he knocked them down.
I didn't think our guards did a very good job of blocking out. There were a couple of key situations in the game where our guards didn't even attempts to block out.
I didn't feel like the game was over. They made some 3s to cut it to 12 and we had to make some free throws.
I didn't feel comfortable leaving him in there, but it had never been done before at Florida. If it had been done three or four times, I probably would have taken him out. Our players really wanted to see him do it.
I didn't know if we had enough experience.
Because he made shots, it energized the rest of his game. He was getting away from that. He was getting ahead of himself.
Hopefully, it's the era that Florida won a lot of games in. They are fine. It's more drawing attention to our league.
He took responsibility. He wasn't putting the blame elsewhere. That's the thing I respect. He asked me what else he could do to help us win. That's the agenda of this team - winning.
He's a problem for anyone because he can rebound, he can score because of their great spacing and he's a very underrated passer out of the post. John (Thompson) has the luxury of playing him and going big or taking him off the floor and going quick. They can go from one extreme to the next because of their balance, so it makes them tough to prepare for.
He's a player-of-the-year candidate, for sure. For me, their whole team is a concern because of their size, their depth and their athleticism.