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
When you shoot like we did and the other team is shooting 71 percent from 3-point range, you expect to be down 15 or 20 points.
Whether it said across their jersey 'Cinderella' or 'George Mason' or another team, it didn't matter. We just had to go out there and play.
Whether it said across their jersey Cinderella, George Mason or another team, for us our basketball team, it's just a matter of going out there playing. Our kids were feeling the same thing that George Mason kids were feeling. The feeling was not any different between teams.
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.
We could have prevented them from storming the floor at Arkansas, you know? Win the game. We could have prevented them from storming the floor at Tennessee. Win the game. . . . The only thing I would be concerned about is the safety of our guys.
We could have had potentially seven or eight first-round draft picks in our league right now.
We just didn't think he was right for us.
We have not faced anything close or remotely like this team.
We were trying to experiment with some different combinations on the perimeter. In a league game, I probably wouldn't risk that, unless we went to a zone a little bit.
There is a point where somebody's going to do something and there's going to be a major problem. I hope it doesn't happen.
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.
We did it with mirrors a little bit.