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
It's very, very obvious watching him play that he's not as reckless and daring and playing like he's capable of. I don't know if there's a level of uncertainty when he plants or jumps or runs, or if he just feels like the pain is so severe that he just can't do what he needs to do.
As a coach, I can't put the ball in the hole for them. But what I can try to do is put them in the best position to take advantage of the talent level they have that they can make plays ... Right now, we have a bunch of guys that are unproven in that area so I'm going to try to eliminate any focus on them worrying about scoring.
As a coach, all you're trying to do is feed them stuff that's going to help them grow faster. You hope that they take their vegetables, and they grow up healthy and they understand. And some of them do and, you know what, it certain situations they have.
That's a really, really interesting question because I've always been a big, big believer that things that have happened in the past, negatively or positively, don't affect your future. I believe I have to work harder now as a head coach, and what I mean by that is we've got to try to continue to recruit good, quality kids.
Every time we were ready to blow it open, they hit a three.
Arkansas' fans do a great job in this building. It's a shame the weather caused a big problem -- this was the smallest crowd I've ever seen here.
Arkansas fans are great fans. It's a shame because you have two really great teams playing against each other and it wasn't a sellout because of the weather in the area.
The last 32 minutes of the game, we were totally outplayed, outperformed, out-everything. I don't think the score is indicative of how they outplayed us in this game.
The last three or four days have been an incredible ride, but nothing like this.
They're going to have bad shooting nights. This was one of our worst shooting performances of the year and we found a way to win.
They're a great help team. They really rotate to each other. One of the big keys in defense is a lot of times guys are afraid to leave their man and give help because they're worried about the next guy rotating to their man.
They're not blocking those guys' shots. If they want to fly through the air and do that, they'll be on the bench.
There's been a lot of hard work and sweat that's gone into it. It's a huge milestone. It's a huge thing for our state, for our fans.
There's a reason why we started the season unranked. This is just something that we have to get through.