Billy Donovan Great Quotations

What they've been able to do this year is great for basketball. Most teams don't get a chance to experience what they've been able to experience. In this tournament, they were able to inspire a lot of people. There was no resentment on our team for feeling like they got all the attention or we got slighted.

What they've been able to do this year is great for basketball.

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.

No one likes losing, but it's great for our basketball team to go through this. It is great because they need this. I really believe the difference was our experience as a basketball team in relation to their experience.

Obviously as a freshman, without question he was not only one of the best freshmen in the league, but was one of the better players in the league. He's got great size. He can shoot over top of people. He makes every difficult shots.

I didn't want to give Tennessee a chance to set their defense. Lee got a great look. It just didn't go down.

Chris has seen himself improve and get better. And I think that is a tribute to him really making some great strides as a person in terms of his work ethic, in terms of competing, in terms of understanding what we want as coaches.

I felt like this year's team would be great to coach, a fun team to coach. They would be a team that would play unselfishly, play together. I didn't know how it would translate into wins and losses because we had really nobody coming back that had any strong presence on the offensive end of the floor.

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.

I can tell you that these kids have a great deal of love and concern and care for one another.

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.

I get great pleasure seeing our kids enjoy the game. It's not about me or how young I am. But it's about the people you coach all the time, and I get a lot of pleasure seeing our kids celebrate.

I get great pleasure seeing our kids enjoy it, our administration enjoy it, our fans enjoy it. It's not about me.

He has a great passion and vigor for life. He has great respect for people - where they come from, what their heritage is and what their beliefs are.

He has a great, great vigor for life.

He never has a bad day. He is an unbelievable kid. He has a great disposition. He's intelligent. And he's very, very enthusiastic.

He's a great coach. This was just a matter of time.

He's always been a terrific runner. He has a great threshold to run through fatigue. He plays all the way. One hundred percent. Full throttle.

He's got great ability and great talent. But the best part of his game is he's a great competitor, has great enthusiasm and he plays to exhaustion.

He was a great guy. It was such a tragedy, what happened. He touched a lot of lives. I know with St. Francis, he and (athletic director) Randy Maris had a lot of plans, he wanted to give Bud the chance to build a basketball program and unfortunately it didn't work out. At least his family, his kids, will have something they can hold to and remember him by.

I think it's a great comparison. Bobby Jones was a great runner in transition, he was a great athlete on the floor. I believe as David continues to grow, his shooting will get better. He's a very versatile guy.

I think in the SEC tournament if you can get a bye that's always a great thing. It's certainly very hard playing four consecutive games in a row to win an SEC championship.

I thought our basketball team, it was a great lesson for them. The great equalizer in college basketball is the three-point shot.

I think it was a great experience for our players. Obviously, it's hard to prepare for the White House on such short notice, but I think they enjoyed themselves on the trip.

Stan has done a great job. People don't understand how hard this league is. Arkansas' loss at Ole Miss was not a bad loss. Ole Miss is a very good, well-coached team.

I think hitting his first shot helped him. It was great to see Lee mix up his game. Lee took a step in that he found other ways to help our team win when he wasn't hitting his 3-pointers.

The 3-point line is a great equalizer in college basketball.

That's the one thing that's been great about our basketball teams over the years -- they've earned their way in. Now, we've got to make something happen.

You have to do a great job evaluating those kids maybe in the top 25 to 100. So we could (eventually) have some junior and senior classes.

We played great tonight, we really did. They gave me everything I could possibly want. I am really proud of the way our team responded here. This was the toughest road environment we faced all season.

Those are great for our basketball team. You hate to lose them. But our team has to go through this before they can reach their potential.

We thought the three-point line would be critical at both ends. It's the great equalizer in college basketball and we held them without one for (nearly) 35 minutes. And I thought Lee Humphrey shot the ball very well.

This will be our second time to face South Carolina this season. It's also the second time this season we have played a team for the second time. They played with great emotion the last time we played each other. We got off to a good start early, but they were the better team that night. It was a six-point win for them, but they had us down 15 points at one point. This game will be a challenge for us. They have competitive kids and they totally out performed us. They beat us in every facet of the game. The challenge to our team is to take it one game to the next. Our last time against them is over. Our last home game is over.

I've been here 10 years and its a special place, an opportunity as great as any in college basketball. But tonight is not about me. It's about these young men.

They appear to be playing very well. I've always felt like they have good personnel there, and it will be a great environment. As highly ranked as we are going into Knoxville, I think it's pretty clear the way both programs feel about each other. We know it's going to be a hostile environment.

On TV, it looks great ... but it's really a scary environment on the floor. The other thing it does is it takes away from what a great win Florida State had. They shouldn't (have to) be addressing their lack of security or whatever. ... They should be talking about how great their kids played and what a great win it was for their program.

This game was all about the 3-point line and our ability to guard it. They made very, very timely 3-point shots. ... The great equalizer in college basketball is the 3-point line. It's the No. 1 stat I look at.

This has been a great place. It's hard to believe it's been almost 10 years.

They played great tonight, they really did. I was proud of how hard they played and competed. They gave me everything I could possibly ask.

They are a terrific team and for us it's another challenge against a great team. They've proven that with what they did against Connecticut and Michigan State and North Carolina. I'm excited for George Mason and it's great for college basketball.

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.

It wasn't the best shot. You're not going to always get a great look with the clock winding down. We didn't probably do as good a job finishing the play as I would have liked.

I told I think it would be great if that's what they want to do if they came out public with it so everybody knows. No more questions about it or talk about it. It's over and done with and this is where they're at.

It's all based on drama. Drama sells. Coaches have made money, coaches have gotten fired and players have been recognized for their achievements. I was part of Cinderella, but as much as the NCAA Tournament has propelled me and given me a lot of great moments, it's also provided a lot of hurt, pain, and suffering for me. It goes both ways.

It's teams like George Mason that give so many people hope in their lives, just seeing what great things can be accomplished.

It's great for our kids and for our program. But I'm just a small part of it.

I've got to give back to so many people who gave to me, first and foremost starting with my dad. I would want to give him a piece of the net. He would love that. I gave him a piece at the regional final. That would be great for him. I know he's excited to be in this environment.

It was a great college basketball game with both teams going back and forth and they were able to take the lead on a play. We got Lee a pretty good shot and if he makes it, we're up by one. It was a little bit short. I thought it had a great chance to go in.

It was a great win against a very good team. From start to finish, LSU has really had an unbelievable season, individually and as a team. They've been the most consistent team all year long.

It was a great, great college basketball game. Both teams had a chance to win. I think Arkansas is as talented as any team in the league. They have more experience, much more size and physicality than we do.

It was great to see Lee letting it go and shooting it. He's always taken 3s, but the biggest change I saw with him was the confidence.

It was great to see him shoot the basketball and let it go with the confidence he did. The biggest thing I look at with Lee is the confidence level he's shooting the ball with. Tonight, he was just letting it go and shooting it with a great deal of confidence.

The second half was a back-and-forth basketball game. Give Arkansas credit. They made some plays and their kids played hard and I thought it was a great college basketball game that both teams had a chance to win at times.

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.

I'm not surprised that he's playing small forward, and I'm not surprised that he's playing well, because he's a great kid and he's always been about the team. He's always been an unselfish kid.

I know a lot of people are so excited for George Mason. It's great for college basketball. Believe me, I'm mesmerized.

I have to give Georgetown a lot of credit. They did a good job defensively. I thought we had some looks coming in and around the basket. We were very, very fortunate to win. It could have gone either way. I think the Georgetown kids played a great game.

I really felt like probably the last 32 minutes of the game we were totally outplayed, outperformed, out everything by South Carolina. Their kids played a great game. I don't think the score was indicative of how much they outplayed us in this game.

In the SEC Tournament if you can get a bye, that's always a great thing. It's certainly very hard playing four consecutive games in a row to win an SEC championship.

In scouting George Mason, they had been shooting 33 percent on their 3-pointers all year and as much as 42 percent. We knew we had to control their perimeter shooting. I thought we did a great job of shutting them down and keeping them off-balance.

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.

He's probably never going to get to a point where he feels great the rest of the season. But I think his confidence level is high. It's good to see him take the amount of shots he took. He put up 11 3s on the road. It was great to see him confidently shoot the basketball and it was great to see him move to the next shot, even when he missed a couple in a row.

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.

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.