Billy Donovan Guy Quotations

Sometimes when you win, people think it's all easy. Our guys have had to grind out games. Our guys have had to find ways to make plays in games.

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.

There might be some truth to (more pressure playing close to home). Kids say, 'There's so many people there I want to do so well,' so that can happen. If you're out in San Diego you're just kind of playing. (But) I don't think these guys will feel that way -- I hope they don't.

I think sometimes when you win people think you're not challenged, but I don't necessarily agree with that. (Wake Forest and Syracuse) were won by five points, then we went to Miami and with two minutes to go in the game the score was tied. Sometimes people think if you win, it's been all easy. I think our guys have had to grind out games and find ways to win some games. I'd rather learn through winning than losing.

If you have a guy that's talented but totally into himself, who never had to be unselfish a day in his life, it's really hard to change that mentality. Now we've got good kids who have been unselfish and have worked hard and gotten better.

If you do the same thing against those guys every single time down the floor, they're eventually just going to pick you apart. So we just tried to change. We tried to get some weak-side help sometimes. We got up in the lane to try to discourage post feeds. We tried to get around and front.

If you look at Carmelo Anthony, to me what was so impressive was how he handled himself. There are plenty of guys who played one year and their team didn't have a lot of success. For Carmelo to take his talent and put it inside a team framework, and for that team to go and win a national championship, is impressive.

I've been fortunate since I've been here in that when our back has been against the wall our guys have responded very well. A lot of that has to do with the mindset and mentality of your team.

Our bench really did some good things, some encouraging things. That really kind of sparked our main guys when they came back in there late in the first half.

Our blocks in the Miami game came the right way. They came with our big guys playing good post defense, moving their feet. When someone from Miami committed to shooting the basketball, most of our blocked shots were on the ball.

We have been right there. There have been some things that have been out of our control a little. I think our guys have put themselves in positions to win, and you are not going to have them all go your way. . . . What our team has done to this point in time and the way they have battled, I think it's pretty impressive.

It hasn't been just this game. It's been all year long. These guys stay focused. It's been a unique and special group.

Effort has never been a problem with these guys. Our problem has been our guys not understanding and not recognizing certain situations.

I was concerned. I just wanted to get through that stretch even and not to have to bring our big guys back in and get more foul trouble. I thought that Garrett and Brett came in and actually did a pretty good job for us.

I was a defensive stopper. I shut guys down. I didn't shoot much.

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.

Lee might be one of the best shooters I've coached, but what he doesn't get enough credit for is his ability to defend on his perimeter. He's probably our most consistent defender in terms of keeping guys in front of him and challenging shots.

Lee is one of those guys who understands scouting reports, schemes and how we are guarding. You can be rest assured that he is going to follow everything to the minute detail of what he has to do. So, forget about the shooting part of it, we have just lost maybe our best overall defender.

I told them this would be a 40-minute battle from start to finish, and if you let frustration creep in at all, you guys are going to lose the game. This is going to be an ugly game where we may not shoot well, but we have to defend and rebound.

I went off pretty good at halftime. I was getting frustrated watching balls go up from the 3-point line when guys are standing in the post with a 6-6 guy guarding them. They finally got the message.

I think our guys took great pride in facing a tougher road to get to this point than other teams. I think our team got better. They were a very, very focused group that worked hard. They peaked and probably played well because of some setbacks in February that helped us grow.

I think our guys are eager to get on to the next phase. We have some guys who know what it takes to win in this tournament.

I think our guys are a little further along mentally than a lot of guys their age.

I just felt like our guys were playing with blinders on. We weren't taking what the defense was giving us. I don't think our 3-point shots were that bad in the first half.

For our basketball team, it was a tale of two halves. In the first half, our guys were very, very impatient on offense. We didn't have the ball movement and the player movement we needed to have. We had good ball movement and player movement and we shot 57 percent in the second half. If we would have played similar to that and rebounded like we did in the first half, it would have been a different game. We couldn't put it all together.

In recruiting, I don't ever feel like all of a sudden guys are now jumping to come to Florida. You still have to work hard and do a good job of evaluating and making sure you get guys who you feel would be best fit for the program and fit in well with teammates.

I derive a lot of pleasure watching these kids play. We don't have guys in the locker room talking about not scoring enough points or not getting enough shots. They play the right way. They really do.

I don't think our guys are upset or bothered by it. That's something that's beyond their control. People can talk about the George Mason story and rightfully so. It's a great story that I think will inspire many people outside of college basketball.

The biggest thing with the NCAA Tournament is to try to get across to your guys that there's a lot of drama and a lot of changing of routines. Any road game, we've never come in a day and a half early. We have to go to a mandatory shoot-around, we have to go to press conferences. When we go on the road to Alabama, no one cares we're in town. This is an event. For some guys, that can add pressure.

You could see him getting better and better and better. First guy in the gym, last guy to leave.

Those three losses, to be honest, I felt pretty encouraged. I just didn't want our guys to get down. I wanted them to see 'Hey listen, this is what we're giving up, and we're losing in overtime and losing by 2 to 3 points. Imagine if we shore this up, how good we can be.' That was kind of the message I tried to give them during that time.

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.

Chris, really, to be honest with you, was a very, very difficult guy to coach in his first two years here. And he has really grown.

I still feel like the kids in our program could get a whole lot better and could improve. And I think another year in college for those guys, or two, would prove to be valuable to them, rather than someone taking a chance or an opportunity, and those guys sitting on the bench and not having a chance to develop.

Coming out of high school, he was one of the few guys that could dominate a game without scoring, ... He was special. The way he played against us was the way people thought he'd be. If he played like that every game, he wouldn't have been at Villanova very long.

I've had guys that have improved and made a really big jump, but I don't know if I've had a player go from a 6-8-10-minutes-a-night guy to being an emotional leader.

We're not at all telling our guys when the shot is up, you need to block shots. We're more concerned about challenging shots and then being able to block out and rebound to start the break. That's where our focus has been.

When you talk about college careers and guys in the Big East, and you put not only their numbers and their stats, but add on top of that the fact that they have won as much as they have won, I think you can throw them in there with any guards that have played in the league.

I thought there were times (against South Carolina) when guys created off the dribble and didn't find him. I thought he should have gotten up 10 or 11 shots. There was three or four or five times when our guys missed him. Our team has got to do a better job of recognizing when he's open and getting him the basketball.

We don't have the luxury of making a mistake on the backboard, and we make mistake after mistake. For every time one of our guys gets praise for blocking a shot, when they don't, they give up position by leaving the floor too early.

Every guy comes in and thinks they're going to play 40 minutes, and after the first game when they don't play as much as they want, you've got to be able to address it and get guys to accept their roles. If selfishness creeps in, teammates can sniff that out pretty quickly. Then all of the sudden the barriers of trust get broken down.

I have never had a player go from a 10-minute-a-game guy one year to being a team leader on the floor. It's pretty unusual, but so is he.

You guys get more interested in all the details. All I know is that the guy's got a hurt shoulder. How it happened doesn't really make a difference. Maybe it was defective spokes or maybe he needs training wheels, I don't know. I just know he slipped off his bike.

If one of my guys would have hauled off and punched somebody, that would be the story right now.

I would say that our basketball team is totally different. Every guy on our team is playing a completely different role than they did a year ago.

Even though the Tigers don't have the height, if you look at the size and girth of those guys in relation to our guys - they're more powerful and more explosive up front. I don't know if we had a physical advantage.

I think we've got a different group of kids. I believe in my heart that all those guys will be back. They're having too much fun, they're enjoying playing together too much.

With the teams we're playing and the stretch we have the next seven days, these guys need to get to a crossroad. Their backs are against the wall. They're either really going to try to do those things, or they're going to put themselves in a position where we can't play to the best of our ability.

We just tried to continue to attack and mix up our defenses. I told our guys this game would come down to the same things we've been doing all year - unselfishness, making the extra pass and being able to defend and rebound.

A lot of our guys don't have shirt, jacket and ties, so we wanted them to be as neat as possible.

I'm very, very proud of these kids. It has been a remarkable run. There was so much uncertainty surrounding our season, but these guys have stepped up.

I was getting frustrated watching balls go up from the three-point line, when those guys are standing 1-on-1 in the post with a guy 6-6 guarding them. It's hard sometimes. I'm constantly preaching to (Green and guard Lee Humphrey), 'When you're open, let it go.' Sometimes you have to change your thought processes.

Our starters didn't play a lot of minutes, and it was good to see us score as many points as we did with those guys not playing. For our team right now, playing this midweek game before getting back into the (Southeastern) conference at Tennessee (Saturday) was good for us.

Actually it's going to start next year. It's a five for one. We've got you guys coming here five times and then we'll come back and play you guys there.

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've had some good quality wins on the road at Providence and Miami, but our guys still feel like they have an enormous amount to prove. The mindset of our basketball team is we feel like going against Georgia is a lot to prove.

We will need to be concerned more with providing help and doing things that will take them out of their offensive flow, because if their big guys get second and third opportunities it can really become a problem for us.

This has probably been the greatest collection of guys I have had in one class in terms of understanding what unselfishness, what team is all about. They get that piece of it.

I'm just a big believer that when guys are injured or hurt, if they elect to play, there's a certain expectation they have to uphold. And if they can't uphold that expectation, I'm totally fine if they sit out.

I'm fortunate to coach an unbelievable group of guys who have been totally selfless. They've been all about the team, and all about winning. ... I'm happy that I can be a part of the first-ever national championship.

These are the situations our guys need to be in for us to reach our full potential as a basketball team. I think a lot of people will focus on the last play, but you know what, with the way these guys battled, it's a shame to lose that way.

Our guys needed to be taught why we were losing, what was causing them to lose. I wanted them to see this is what we're giving up, and we're losing in overtime, we're losing by two or three points. Imagine if we shore this up, how good we can be.

Our guys have to be able to handle that pressure. There are a lot of distractions. There is a lot of tugging and a lot of things you have to deal with that are different from the regular season. I want them to enjoy where they are at because it is the pinnacle of college basketball to get to this point. At the same time, you have to keep the focus there and put yourself in position to play the best basketball.

Our guys have really tried to work hard at it.

Our guys have done a pretty good job so far of keeping a level of humility and trying to get better each day.

Our guys were prepared and knew Sheldon was a good 3-point shooter. But I think there was a lack of respect for the 3-point line tonight by our guys.

It is an emotional, draining year. And that's always a concern for you as a coach, especially when you are dealing with guys who go through it for the first time.

All of those guys can look at the individual honors and attribute it to playing as a team. They made it possible by being a team and they were honored as a team.

I am very, very proud of these kids. It has been such a remarkable run up to this point, just with so much uncertainty surrounding this season with people leaving early and these guys having to step up.

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.

I have said before that we are not the most talented team, we are not the best team and there are always ugly moments in games. But you are always going to feel good as a coach walking off the court coaching these guys because they give you everything they have. Whether that is enough to win the game (against Tennessee), we'll see.

I really feel bad for Lee, because Lee is a good kid. He is one guy who is so conscientious in the way he lives his life. He eats correctly, he gets to bed early and he is at every tutor and every study hall. He is such a perfect kid in a lot of ways. For him, it bothers me as a coach that he can't be out there.

He made the game easier for the entire team. He really got everyone else involved. Some guys had some really big nights because of his dribble penetration.

This has been a remarkable run to this point. There was just so much uncertainty surrounding our season with people leaving early and guys having to step up.

I felt like our team learned a lot today. I think our guys understand a little bit more how hard you've got to compete, and I'm talking about physically. Our guys play with great emotion and energy, but there's also a physical side they've got to learn. They are an unfinished product, but they really try. We played aggressively, we got up and down the floor and we played our style.

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.

I don't think that we have played against anyone with his size and athletic ability. He is very impressive because he is so skilled. He is a good passer which is impressive for a guy who is 7-foot-2. He runs, he catches and he alters shots. You just don't see a lot of players in college basketball like him. This will be a unique game for us to play against a guy like him.

It was good to see us score so many points without those guys playing so much.

It was good to see those guys get rewarded out there. Our normal rotation guys enjoyed those guys' success on the floor.