Billy Donovan Addresses the Media Monday (Transcript)
Monday, February 7, 2011 | Men's Basketball
University of Florida Head Coach Billy Donovan
Monday, Feb. 7, 2011
On playing South Carolina on Wednesday night:
“Well I think we are at an interesting time right now in our league, because we will start to play people in the East for the second time. Going to Columbia against a team that I thought played very well here in Gainesville, they really out-played us all the way through; their front court did a great job blocking shots. I thought when the game was close (Bruce) Ellington, really made some key free throws and some key plays coming down the stretch. It was a hard- fought game; a game that they really out-performed us, and out-played us, and we now have the challenge of going there to play.”
On Chandler Parson's status as the top rebounder in the SEC:
“I think the biggest thing is, for any rebounder, is that he's active; he makes the effort to go to the glass. I think when you are a small forward, as he is, there is an advantage there for his size because he is on the perimeter a lot. It is a lot more difficult for Vernon Macklin or (Alex) Tyus to rebound the ball when you are in a smaller space, but for a person like Chandler who is playing on the perimeter, it's a lot easier to see flights of balls and run in. The tendency is when someone's on the perimeter a lot of times, to not block them out, to lose sight, or to be caught in a rotation, and that gives Chandler a lot of times the free run to go in there. It helps us also when he defensive rebounds, because due to his size, he can start to break and run quickly without having to outlet the ball. I think the biggest thing is he provides effort when he goes to the back board.”
On adjusting to South Carolina's frontcourt:
“I thought (Sam) Muldrow really did a great job of blocking a couple shots that I thought were difficult blocks. Vernon Macklin came in there real hard one time and tried to dunk it and Patric Young came in there real hard one time and tried to block it. The blocks that we have to eliminate or avoid is Erving Walker driving down the lane getting too deep, trying to shoot a floater over them; those aren't good. However, I think many times when you are going to the rim as aggressively as Macklin, Tyus and Patric Young did, sometimes you just have to tip your hat to the defender and give him credit that he made a heck of a block. All three of those people came in to dunk the ball and that is what you want to do, is go aggressively, and they did that. There were a couple of plays where we were able to dunk it and there were a couple of plays when he (Sam Muldrow) blocked it. We have to be aggressive in terms of attacking the rim.”
On team playing like a team:
“I think sometimes what happens is, we don't give the opponent more credit. What I mean by that is Tennessee's on their home court with four or five minutes to go, down by six or eight; they are going to fight back. Same thing with Georgia, those teams are going to fight back. Sometimes you have to give those other team's credit; they are not just going to roll over and die. I think our people have gotten better, but the biggest thing when you are talking about the team concept part, for me, is the understanding of what a team is and an understanding of what goes into winning. I think for Macklin, Tyus and Parsons, those three people in particular, I would consider the somewhat rocky starts to their careers. Chandler had a real good first year; then maybe his sophomore year was not quite what he hoped it would be. Macklin, a McDonalds All-American, he transferred from Georgetown with probably the expectation of being one and done. Alex Tyus had to play out of position because we lost Marreese Speights. I do not think you can really win and win big until your heart really gets broken and then you find out how really important winning is to you. When you put a lot of time and energy into something and it doesn't work out for you, I think there's two kinds of players: there's players that really battle and fight to figure it out, and then there's players that say, 'It's just not that important to me, I like playing the game but the winning part of that is not out of that.' I think for Chandler and Alex Tyus in particular, with Macklin sitting out, going to two NIT's, your back gets put against the wall with what do you guys want to do right now, because the guys are playing the majority of the minutes. I think there is a much better understanding of what goes into winning and competing at this level. There is always a fine line between winning and losing, because we could be sitting here going, 'Coach, a lot of tough losses and your team has fallen short.' We are 7-2 and our league record could look totally different because we could of lost to Georgia; we could have lost to Tennessee; we could have lost Kentucky and we could have lost Vanderbilt. We could have lost all four of those games, but we didn't. I do not think we didn't lose those games because we're better or have anything else figured out, but in those situations, for whatever reason, we were able to make some plays. I do feel that the character of the team is found in adversity. When Kentucky, the other night, up 13, made an incredible run at us, and we went through a period against their zone where we didn't get good shots and we didn't do a good job defensively, and they took a three point lead, our guys stayed resilient and kept battling and kept trying to persevere. Whatever the outcome would have been, my message the next day would have been areas we need to get better at, but I didn't feel that as a coach that we just folded. I think at time some of these older guys, they would fold but they have gotten better in that area.”
On trusting the bench:
“I trust their effort. I trust they are going to give a great effort. I do not trust necessarily their experience because they do not have a whole lot in certain situations. However, they are going to play hard; they are going to be aggressive; they are going to do many of those things and that is that you want as a coach. When you have guys playing really, really hard and they are physical and they are trying to do things that are going to put our team in a position to win, I am a lot more comfortable putting guys in the game with that kind of understanding. I think those guys have an idea of what their roles need to be in terms of just being ready for me to put them in there.”
On Chandler's second-half effort vs. Kentucky:
“I think every player wants to win; you never come across a player or a team that says that they don't want to win. However, the question that needs to be asked is: do you hate losing more than you enjoy winning? Some people do not. What Chandler was doing in the game was, he always plays hard; I've never, ever had a problem with Chandler's effort. He has always been an aggressive hard-playing guy, I think he's always wanted to win, but it's an understanding of what you have to do to win. He did some things defensively in the game when we were in a bind on some rotations that really provided some great help. I was asking him during the first and second half, 'Do you need to come out,' but he didn't say he needed to come out; he said he was fine. I do not know how many times in my career here that I have actually played a person for twenty-straight minutes, because that's a hard thing to do. I think the Kentucky guys wanted to win the game; there wasn't anyone out there that didn't want to win the game. (Kentucky was) coming off a loss at Ole Miss - I am sure they wanted to come in and get a win too, so it was a hard fought game.”
On changing things to continue wins:
“I think there has to be a level of awareness and a step that we can take to understand what we have to do. We do have a very clear, visual understanding that the team we are playing beat us already, and beat us on our home court. We have to understand why and get better. For me, the Kentucky game is only one win, and I understand that with College GameDay and all the other hype and stuff, the kids can get wrapped up in it. However, it's only one win; it was a 40-minute game and sometimes the magnitude of the game gets created with a lot of drama that, to me, has no bearing on what we need to do as a team. They have to understand very clearly what we have to try and do against South Carolina - they are a great rebounding team; they are a great shot-blocking team, and they take a lot of three-point shots; those things really hurt us. We must also think of our energy and effort. Emotionally, can we get to a level that we need to get to on Wednesday night to try and play at the very best of our ability?”
On Alex Tyus:
I think like anyone else, and most players, you feel like you are in the flow of the game when the ball goes into the basket. Tyus made his first couple of shots to start the second half, which probably helped him out defensively a little bit more. That area is what I call the human element - the tendency to focus on how the offense is going when there are still more things you could be doing to affect the outcome of the game. I think that's an area that Alex has to get better at, because he hasn't scored a lot and hasn't shot the ball, but he is still athletic enough that he could do other things to help our team.”
On teams executing expectations:
“I think that against zones, you're going to have to execute some shots. We played some zone against Kentucky and Doron Lamb knocked down a three and (Brandon) Knight knocked down a three, and that is what you have to do. We had a few decent shots and we didn't knock them down, and part of why teams play zone is to try to make you shoot some from the top. You are not always going to be able to get it inside. We got it in twice to Vernon, who got double-teamed. One time, he got it knocked out of his hands, and they stole it. The other time, he got the ball out of there. You are not going to be able to low post-up a person a two-three zone; your guards and perimeter people are going to have to make some plays with some passing. Could we of moved a little bit better? Probably, but I was more concerned with the other end of the floor. We did real good job defensively, but the bottom line was even during that little spell, there we did not guard like we needed to.”
On Erving Walker affecting the team outside of shooting:
“I thought he was really pretty good. I did not think that he forced many shots; he only took nine shots. He really tried on defense. He had a huge steal that he was fouled on when we were down, and he ran our team. I did not think he got to a point where he was over-penetrating and trying to be too aggressive and make too many plays. He and Boynton, when the ball goes in or out, it is going to be kind of pivot with them, but I do think both people try at the other end of the floor. Boynton has been on some tough matchups these last couple of games. He's had to guard Clarke, Jenkins, even (DeAndre) Liggins was a hard guy at 6-6, but he gives it to me at the other end of the floor; both guys try and do that.”
On his assessment of the team:
“Being in first place, if you look at our league, especially our side; it's all botched up into these last seven games; eight for others. We still have to go to South Carolina; we still have to go to Kentucky; so all of that's going to play itself out. I think our team has gotten better. Every player on the team has his own individual expectations of how the season is going to go for them, and it never goes the way they think it's going to go. Then you have the level of disappointment that they experience, and I think we are able to work through that. We are becoming more of a team in terms of understanding how to utilize each other's strengths and weaknesses. I think on any given night, we can play with anybody, and I think on any given night, that a Jacksonville or a Central Florida can beat us. That's who we are. However, I think we are a better team today then we were when we played those guys. I still think we have some room for improvement as our younger guys continue to get better, and the older guys have room for improvement. I do not look at us as being a top-10 or top-20 team right now. You have to go out there and play the game and hopefully our people understand that there is such fine line right now, even for us, being 7-2 with four overtime games. We are lucky to be on the winning side of those, but it could be different. As a coach, I am just trying to deal with what is the truth; what is the reality about where we at, where we got to get better. I think our guys have shown a level of resiliency, but my biggest concern is handling the prosperity part of, 'Can you now come back off a game like that and understand the human element, and then battle that and try and get yourself ready to play?' We could play well in Columbia and not win the game, but I want to see us have a disposition on the court that we are playing at a level that is as hard as we can play. Then we have to execute some things to put ourselves in the position to try and win.”
