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'm not really concerned about that with us at this point. I'm concerned about us going into each game being the best we can be.
I'm going to gain pleasure if that happens Monday night.
I'm going to support any decision our players make, but I hope to be very involved in the process. The thing you have to understand is that our kids don't want to just make it to the NBA. They want to excel.
I'm not even worried about that. I don't even focus on that. I don't talk about that. That's completely out of our hands. That's the selection committee. And that has to do with us winning basketball games.
I'm not even concerned about that right now. I'm more worried about playing LSU (Saturday at home). Even before this game, Tennessee was in control of its own destiny.
It's nice to do something that hasn't been done in 21 years. But it does not move you any closer to the goals you have.
Effort has never been a problem with these guys. Our problem has been our guys not understanding and not recognizing certain situations.
We have an enormous amount of room to get better. Are we the 75th-ranked team in the country? Are we the second-ranked team in the country? You know what, we're probably somewhere in the middle. Wherever that may be, it's probably fair.
I was concerned about trying to double him. I wanted him to score and to take those other guys out of the game the best we could. It worked out for us.
I thought the key to the game was the three-point line. They were shooting 32 percent for the year but shot 42 percent in the tournament. We knew the three-point line would be critical.
They're so hard to get the ball inside against. But I felt if we could just get the ball up against the backboard, we had a good chance at getting offensive rebounds. It was good to see Al and Jo play the way they did.
The 3-point line is a great equalizer in college basketball.
If that happened, I'd be really disappointed in our team. We're playing against a team that really out-performed us a couple of weeks ago in Columbia. The final score says 6 points, but we were down by 15 in the second half, we were dominated in the game. I would hope our guys would be excited about having the opportunity to compete again and play again.
We missed so many easy baskets around the rim at first. We did a much better job in the second half of getting the ball inside and rebounding. As a coaching staff, we have to keep our guys upbeat and not let them get frustrated.