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
Whether or not we're deserving of all this, I don't know, ... I'm just trying to look at the bigger picture of my team.
What they've been able to do this year is great for basketball.
We felt like Darrel Mitchell was the key to their team, so we tried to run at him and trap him as much as we could. When he gets his 18 or 19 points, everything else falls into place.
We're just a basketball team that doesn't have a lot of depth right now. That's our biggest challenge.
We are a different team. I don't know if it's a better or what it is, but it's different and it's different roles.
There are a lot of good point guards in this league.
We're a different team. I don't know if it's better or good or what it is, but it's different with different roles. I don't know how much we'll take from last year's game. It's a new day, new season, new opportunity.
We're 16-0 right now, but we could very easily be 11-5. It's that fragile. We have to work for everything we get. We had to work against Auburn all the way to the end. We had to work all the way until the end against Mississippi State.
We didn't want to put David into the game, but we didn't have much of a choice. Anthony (associate coach Anthony Grant) was out of eligibility.
When I looked at it, I thought it was pretty serious. That's something that we'll have to be careful with. We have an off-day (Sunday) and then we'll re-evaluate it.
We're looking forward in playing in what is a great, great event. We don't know who our opponent will be, but we know it will be a very good team and we know that this is a one-and-done situation.
We've got a very quick turnaround. We're going to have to get a lot done in a very short period of time.
I laugh when people say they are better off without him. He is one of the most dominant frontline players in the SEC.
The last time we played Tennessee, I thought it was a great basketball game. Both teams played well. It was a tie score with 20 seconds to go. Both teams played a pretty balanced game. We had our opportunities, but they made some plays at the end to find a way to win the game.