Billy Donovan Press Conference Quotes
Monday, January 26, 2015 | Men's Basketball
Head coach Billy Donovan met with the media on Monday and discussed where the team needs to improve, looked back at Saturday's loss at Ole Miss and previewed Tuesday's game at Alabama.
On areas where improvements can be made…
Pretty much everywhere. There's not necessarily one thing. I think the last play of the game [at Ole Miss], there was a play in the middle of the second half that was almost the identical same play and we didn't do a great job on that coverage either. They didn't score on it but we didn't deal with it well enough. Breakdowns coming out of [Anthony] Perez coming in the game and not switching like we need to inside, scouting report, and getting caught with two guys on the ball on a throwback three for him. A post trap and our guard's not on the inside and giving up a layup. Transition defense. I mean it's not just one thing. It's just the consistency and the discipline to do it for forty minutes. We do it sometimes but we don't do it enough. Over a course of forty minutes, with those kind of breakdowns, inevitably you're in a really, really tight game like we were.
On modifying Kasey Hill's role on the team…
The one thing I would say about Kasey [Hill] is what I admire about him. He's really, really coachable, he's working hard, he's trying. I think in some other situations where I made some adjustments and changes at positions in terms of moving guys out of the starting line-up. A lot of times that is more of a mentality, a guy's mentality, his approach. Kasey's approach has been really, really consistent. I think one of the challenges inside of our team has been, I think, in order to be a really good team you have to have two anchors. You have to have an anchor up top at the point guard position, you have to have an anchor at the rim. And I would say, of late, those two spots have been challenging for us and have been inconsistent for us on both ends of the floor. So I think if Chris Chiozza really had made a huge jump and was shoulders above a Kasey or was giving us more of what we needed, maybe I would do that but right now I can't say that.
On the keys to improving…
We've done a lot of different things more than anything else. I think to be a really, really good team there's got to be a high level of discipline and consistency, and calling it like it is, it's when you have some younger guys right now in some of these spots and roles. And I would throw even an Alex Murphy in there who's played very limited minutes in his career, hasn't really absorbed a lot of minutes in college. It's just the process of them having to get better. We have gotten better as a team. I think right now there's little increments of things I've seen improve. Right now inside the league, we lead the league in field goal percentage offense, in terms of we've done a better job offensively. Our three-point shooting inside the league has moved up. Our numbers have improved. We've struggled a lot of times scoring. I think we're having and doing a better job. But the inconsistency of going to Georgia and turning it over 19 times in the game, coming home against Auburn and doing a great job of taking care of the ball and I think even Bruce [Pearl, head coach of Auburn] made the comment that his team's generally forced more than nine turnovers a game. Then come back to Ole Miss and have 10 turnovers in the first half. That's what I'm talking about.
There's no set thing that you can kind of…I'm just using the turnovers as an example. We can talk about free throw shooting, where we go to South Carolina, we're coming down the stretch, we go 8-for-8 and knock them down. Then all of a sudden we come back in this game and we go 1-for-4, 1-for-5 coming down the stretch. That's the inconsistency. So it's not just one thing. I think showing them where they're inconsistent and the amount of attention to detail and focus that they have to have to even put themselves in the position to win. And I said after the game and I really mean this, their best player and one of the leading scorers in the league in [Stefan] Moody goes 2-for-10. And we did a good job on him we've provided a lot of help we did a really good job on him. We go 12 three-point shots, shoot 48% from the field, 60 [percent] from three and we're unable to win because of breakdowns, over a period of time where you get a few more free throws, you execute a little bit better defensively, you don't turn it over 10 times. We don't turn it over 10 times, we still have a six-point lead. Those kind of things put our team in a position where we end up finding it hard to win like that at the level maybe we have in the past.
On whether he's made adjustments in coaching…
I think I've changed a lot. I think I've changed a lot. I hope for the better. You go through these experiences, just calling it like it is. Coming out of '06 and '07 that was a real hard pill for me to swallow personally because you go from obviously the pinnacle to basically going and having to start over with. And I'm not so sure that I really wanted to deal with that reality. And probably my internal frustration and maybe I didn't do as good of a job coaching as I needed to back then and we had inside of our team we weren't really a team. And that group was totally different than this group. There was just a mentality back then that they have everything figured out and clearly we didn't. I think going into this situation and going through a year like we had last year where I've never been part of a team that's won 30-straight games. I've never been part of a team that goes 120-something days without losing. I've never been part of a team that's just gone right through the league and never lost a game in the tournament or in the regular season. Go to the Final Four. I've never been a part of that whole entire experience before. And I really prepared myself because I knew what we had coming back, what this was going to be like. And I tried to prepare them for this idea that, because there was some pieces coming back, some players that played significant minutes, that everything was just going to keep rolling on. But when you coach Kasey Hill and you coach [Michael] Frazier and you coach Dorian Finney-Smith and Alex Murphys in your program and he's there every single day in practice, when you have some of those guys back and you see the inconsistencies that are totally covered up because of some really experienced veteran senior guys, that's what people missed on our team going into this season. So to me, I probably…my frustration level with them is not high because I'm not surprised by any of this. The mistake I probably made as a coach back then was the fact that our schedule was way too soft and we were never, ever able to deal with the reality of where we were really at as a team. And I think when you play the schedule we've played, the UConns and at Florida State and Kansas, you know some of these teams we've played against, that reality is a lot clearer.
It was interesting I think Eli [Carter] made a comment, and I said this to him. I think we started off the league 3-0 and he made a comment 'we're all right now.' This group is never 'all right'. Ever. Ever. They're not. They're all right when I can see them do it day in and day out. And they really, really struggle in that area. They really, really struggle. So to me it's when you say 'where do you go?' we've just got to keep getting better. I feel like my responsibility as a coach is to try to help these guys and teach these guys what legitimately goes into winning, how to really become a team, how to deal with adversity, how to develop some resiliency and some perseverance. When I say I see little bit of signs of we make some steps or growth. The LSU game it's whatever it is, a four or five-point game at the half, we cut it down to three, they kind of make a little bit of a run and all of a sudden we've got kind of this woes-y means, heads down and all that kind of stuff. The same thing happened at Ole Miss and we responded and we got down by seven or eight there in the second half. That was a step in a positive…but can we continually do that? Because when you're in your league, you're going to be playing against teams that are going to be able to make runs at you. It's not going to go smooth sailing for forty minutes. There's going to be some confrontation and some adversity. The other team practices too and they're getting prepared and ready to play as well.
On whether his recruiting philosophy has changed with all the transfers he has brought in…
I think the transfer part, you know with the Damontre Harris situation, I was a little disappointed that that didn't work out. The only reason I say that is because I was familiar with Damontre coming out of high school, as we recruited him. We recruited Dorian [Finney-Smith] out of high school a little bit. You know, Rashon Burno has a personal relationship with Eli Carter. So I think if you look at some of the transfers we've taken, even Alex Murphy and Jon Horford, there is a deep family relationship there because of their brothers. The transfers have been ones that have really made sense for us as we know what we're getting in terms of the kind of kids they are and those kind of things. Like I've said with Damontre that was disappointing that that one didn't pan out for us. But I do think that recruiting over the course of time since I've been here is totally different today than it was when I first got here. It's just totally different. The philosophy hasn't changed necessarily, it's been probably more, you know, even going back to… You know, it's like our team right now. All the flaws that our team has right now, they had last year for some of these guys. But they were able to be camouflaged and covered over. And the same thing can be said in recruiting. You know, when [Bradley] Beal is in for a year and Walter Pitchford is gone and then you have [Michael] Frazier and Dillon Graham and DeVon Walker and Braxton Ogbueze. The only one left playing right now is Frazier [from his recruiting class]. You know Eli Carter comes in and you're hoping that he's going to be able to recover, at least you think he is from his injury, and he never really is quite the same. Even though we've gotten some good minutes out of him here and there, but last year he was eligible to play and we couldn't play him. Brandone Francis same thing. Chris Walker had the situation with the NCAA. You don't see those things because they're covered up, and now they are no longer covered up. They are right there in front of them. All this hype about Chris Walker or Kasey Hill, now you have to look at them as players and what they're doing in between the lines right now. Where, maybe you didn't have to do that a year ago. Alex Murphy doesn't play a lot but now he's playing more. You have to look at that for what it is. So, those things I think go over a course of time and it's not our guys fault. It's more, we're out there recruiting and doing those things. But there's not enough around our team right now and that's just the reality of it.
On identifying the qualities that a coach looks for in the recruiting process…
Well you never really know. I think that every coach, and it's no different in professional draft situations. If we always just got it right, then there would never be any mistakes. You really don't know in a lot of ways. And if you did know, then sometimes you wouldn't really make those kind of decisions. You really never know until a guy gets here what he's actually going to be like and you start coaching him. I think it's very, very easy sometimes to start labeling players in recruiting. Devin Robinson was a guy coming in here that I was really, really concerned about because he needed to grow and mature and he just needed to be a little bit more serious. You know what? He is serious, he does want to be good. He wants to get better. He works hard. So sometimes you can get in to labeling somebody in the recruiting because you've never really been with somebody, you've never worked with somebody, and once they get here they can be totally different then what you expected, both ways.
On why the flaws that he spoke of earlier regarding Finney-Smith, Frazier, etc. have not been corrected…
I mean, you try and correct those every day. You try to correct them every day. It's not our lack as a coaching staff for not wanting to work on those things, it's not a quick fix. These guys have lived and played a certain way their whole entire life and now you're talking about totally changing. I always say this, what gets you to college doesn't keep you in college, or it doesn't make you a great player in college. But it got them to this point and now the process is, can they change and evolve into what they need to be to really reach their fullest potential. And that just doesn't happen overnight. I think if I would've said to you after Casey Prather's freshman year that he was going to be an All-American, you probably would've said, 'you're out of your mind.' After [Chandler] Parsons sophomore year, I would've told you he was going to be doing what he's doing right now, you'd have probably said 'you're out of your mind.' If you would've saw Joakim Noah play his freshman year and where he's at now. There is a process they all have to go through and sometimes the process is longer for some guys than others. Believe me, there is constant pressure for them to continue to grow and develop and evolve. We're constantly putting those guys in situations in practice to confront those things and to deal with those things. But ultimately, those things that they have to improve on, sometimes it's quicker for other guys, sometimes it's longer for other guys. Sometimes guys never quite get it and that's just the reality of it.
On whether things can be made easier for the players…
“The first thing you always start with at any point, offensively or defensively, is do guys know what they're doing? We know what we're doing. You know? We know what we're doing. We have three things that we do in pick-and-roll coverage. They all know what the coverages are. We have a progression we do when the ball goes inside. They know what to do. This is not a situation where guys are like, 'I don't know where to go or what to do.' Now I will say, one of the things that I do get concerned about as a coach sometimes is that when you start moving players around to different positions, are you outing them in a situation that they don't know and while they're out there, are they lost? I think in the past I've talked about that. You start taking a guy like Devin Robinson, if you're going to move him into the power forward spot, you have to keep it very, very streamlined for him. Because you can't expect him to know a whole entire playbook from a totally different position. A guy like Jake [Kurtz], he knows all five positions. Jake could play the point, he could play the two, the three, the five, the four and it doesn't make a difference. He knows. Dorian [Finney-Smith] is the same way. He can play all over the place. But, I think that they know what they're doing. The problem is, once things start happening very quickly. You know, we covered for two hard, long days of preparation going into the Ole Miss game, that when they y-pin down for [Stefan] Moody, here is how we're going to guard it. At a crucial point in the game we didn't guard it that way. They know. But sometimes it's easier to go the other way or if something happens very quickly and all of the sudden the ball goes into the post and a guy is supposed to be at help-side and he's over there hugging his man. And then the play happens and they know. I'm not getting as a coach, 'I don't know what I'm doing.' It's the ability to be able to respond and react in those situations.
On Michael Frazier's performance against Ole Miss…
I think Michael [Frazier]'s mindset is changing for the better. I don't think he came into this season with the right mindset. And [I've been] trying to help him change because he's obviously struggled here and there. I felt like for the first time in a while, not that he made shots, because the ball can go in or out of the basket. I just liked his disposition and the way he was playing the game. You know, it's always a little bit easier, if you're calling it like it is, your first shot goes down, your second shot goes down, after you make your first two it's easy to stay engaged in the game. Michael's challenge is going to be when he misses some, can he still stay engaged in the game. But I was happy with his approach. His approach, to me, has gotten better over the last week or so and that's been pleasing. I'm not sure his approach was that way when the season started.
On Alabama…
I think [Alabama] is a much, much deeper team. [They are] much more balanced. So much of, I think their team went through [Trevor] Releford and he was a terrific player for them, but [Jimmie] Taylor is a year older, [Ricky] Tarrant was sitting out a year, [Shannon] Hale is a year older, [Rodney] Cooper has been there and obviously I think Levi Randolph is having a phenomenal year. They've gotten some good production from some young guys but their veteran guys have improved and gotten better. They are a very, very good team. They are a deep team and can play a lot of different line-ups, they can play small, they can play big and they have a lot of versatility inside their roster.
On whether he thinks his team can make a run…
Well the question was asked, 'do I see these guys turning it around?' And I'm not going to be one of these guys that's just going to say optimistically, oh yeah. All I can do is go off of what I am dealing with today. So we've shown no signs of consistency. Now we're working on those things, but there haven't been any signs that I've seen that makes me go, wow we're ok. We're not ok. For me as a coach, I love going on the court with these guys, I love coaching them, I love being around them. If this was an attitude or behavioral issue then I'd probably be a lot more disappointed. It's not that at all. It's a consistency of being able to do it, night in and night out for forty minutes. Practice in and practice out for forty minutes. That's really what it comes down to.
On Duke Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski winning his 1,000th game…
Well, I think that he's [Mike Krzyzewski] done so much for the game. I think because of my time with USA Basketball, I've been able to spend a little bit more time with him. I think to be able to do it as long as he's done it and then to obviously be able to coach our National Team. I just think for what he's meant and done for the game for such a long period has been really remarkable and amazing to see what he's been able to accomplish.
On whether he has another 20 years of coaching in him to get to 1,000 career wins…
I'm not so sure about that.
