Billy Donovan Press Conference Quotes
Tuesday, January 6, 2015 | Men's Basketball
Head coach Billy Donovan held the first of his weekly press conferences that will take place throughout SEC action and through the end of the season. See what he had to say below or watch the video.
On how Michael Frazier has handled being a leader and what he needs to improve upon…
“I don't think he has handled that well at all and I don't say that from the standpoint of him coming from bad intentions. I think Michael [Frazier] is a very competitive guy, he's a guy that wants to win but I'm not sure that his approach going into that was the best thing in terms of what he was trying to do. I think as a guy who was coming back from last year's team, someone who has logged a lot of minutes, as he was our lone starter coming back from a year ago. What I tried to get him to see in the offseason was that it wasn't so much about what he had to do, as much as it was about how you impact the people around you. To me, great players have been the people who can impact the group as a whole. Meanwhile, Michael's approach was, 'what am I going to do, how am I going to help this team.' When you're in that primary role as a Scottie Wilbekin has been, as a Patric Young has been, it takes a lot that you have to get out of yourself and you have to make sure you invest in some of the other guys in terms of your approach. Because you need those other guys to help you do what you need to do. Also, by your ability, as Michael has tremendous ability, your abilities actually open up things for other people.
“I think Michael's approach coming into the offseason was a lot about, 'I want to be the leader of this team, I want to help carry the team,' and that, to me, is the wrong approach. I told him that back in the summer. You're missing what it's about, as it's not about that. How are you going to handle if a team decides to wipe you out of a game as they'll just totally face-guard you and not let you get a shot up? Are you okay figuring out that this is an opportunity for other guys so that other things can be opened up for them? I think for him, he's really struggled with that. I'll give you an example with that, as it happened in the Albany game in last year's NCAA Tournament. Albany decided to go with a triangle-and-two defense against Scottie Wilbekin and Mike, and I think that Mike got a little bit frustrated with that. But what it did was open up an unbelievable game for Doe Doe [Dorian Finney-Smith], as Doe Doe had a great game coming off the bench and really provided a lot for our team. Even though he wasn't scoring, his presence on the court had an incredible impact on the other people around you. That's where I think he has to get to. I think that Michael has been a tremendous worker, he's a coachable guy and he's really a great kid, but I think that when you step into a moment like he has for the first time in your life, where four stars are gone and he's the lone star coming back, sometimes you can get clouded and really lose sight about what this is about and how to go about doing it. I think for him, he's in the process of learning a lot.”
On what he has told the team about the upcoming SEC schedule…
“There is part of me that looks at it as it's a whole year and there is another part of me that looks at it, as you mentioned, as the nonconference schedule, then you get ready for conference play. In a lot of ways for me, I think our conference schedule started right when we came out of that three-game home stand [Yale, Texas Southern, Jacksonville] and we played Wake Forest in Sunrise, Fla. and UConn this past Saturday. We've kind of been in it with the teams that we have played against. We are starting new, in terms of, we are playing for something now. I'm not saying we weren't playing for anything, as you're always playing for something. But now there's going to be a league champion at the end of this and those kind of things. I think it's an opportunity for us to grow and kind of get better as a basketball team.
“I'll say this coming from my perspective as a coach. Coming here in my first two years and absorbing two losing seasons, coming out of two national championships, then going to the NIT [National Invitational Tournament] twice, I've kind of been in these types of situations before. And I think as a coach, you have to always reflect back and think of things that you would've done differently and should do differently. I think in a lot of ways you learn a lot in those situations. I believe those situations, both winning and losing, create something inside of you and you become something out of it. I've learned a lot through those past experiences as a coach. I think for our team, I don't really look at the record as much as how we are playing. I made the comment that right before the season started, we had a broken hand by Doe Doe [Dorian Finney-Smith], Chris Walker being suspended, Eli Carter being injured and guys being out. I think there was this feeling of, 'Once they get their guys back, they're going to be fine.' I've never looked at it that way, I always look at how you're playing. Because last year we had the same thing. We had a lot of guys out, as we were only playing with seven guys, and we were able to absorb that because we were so connected because we had guys who knew what goes into it. I felt like once we got a full healthy team, it was going to be fine. This team is in the process, and as much as I want to rush this process, and certainly we are going to hold them accountable, but they are going to have to go through this process to really learn what it takes to compete and play at the highest level.”
On the team's mindset…
“I think a couple of things. First, the want for our guys to do well is there. They have been pretty resilient in terms of wanting to do well and trying to work. What has happened, in the heat of a lot of moments, when things have not gone well, as I said after our last game [UConn], there has been a disconnection in some of those things. Those are the things that have to get better. I don't see, which sometimes you guys see, such as finger pointing, blaming, it's this guy's fault, etc. We don't have any of that stuff. This is a consistency issue in my opinion. It's an issue of, when things are not going your way and you're not playing like you need or want to play, can you actually move past that and not become so self-absorbed with yourself and how it's impacting you? Can you move past that? For example, can Alex Murphy move past missing two free throws? Like, I get you're at the line and you have a chance to put us up by one, but can you move past it? Can Jake Kurtz move past what happened at Florida State? I think Jake moved past it and we will see how Alex does here today in practice. It's more of that. I have a totally different view, because I think that you can get so caught up into the result and we all want the same thing.
“They've got to have the correct competitive disposition. We don't have that. We don't. We have to become more connected, we need to help each other more, we need to get out of ourselves and we need to start making each other better. Those are things that I'm more concerned about. The first thing I think you look at when we're watching film, and I always do, and we've made adjustments and changes, but we always look at things schematically. What are we doing on offense? What are we doing on defense? Are these the best decisions we can make? What about lineups? What about playing guards together? Should we play [Chris] Chiozza together with Kasey Hill, which we have done more in the past? What can we do to make our team better? So as a coach, you make changes and look at all those things, which is pretty easy to look at and do to make those kind of adjustments to make you better. The harder part to deal with is the stuff that I'm talking about. That competitive disposition when things are not going well, can you guys really rally and pull together? To be honest with you, that has been our struggle, which has been our challenge which is that level of consistency when things get really amped up.”
On Frank Martin and how his teams have grown under him at South Carolina…
“I've known Frank [Martin] a long time and I consider Frank a close friend. I think a lot of times people look at Frank and they see him as this intense, dominating and intimidating figure on the sideline, but he's the biggest teddy bear out there. He really is. He loves his players and I know he went through some difficult things with his players last year. I'm not saying how he went about it is right or wrong, that's for Frank and their [South Carolina's] administration to decide. What I am saying though, is that Frank is convicted and he's got belief in how he wants his teams to play, perform and what he wants them to stand for. When you don't have a team these past couple of years that embodies that, you fight for that. You let your team know that that is very important. I'll let Frank decide whether he went about it the right way or wrong way, as that's up to him. I know Frank Martin as a man and who he is in his core. What he's done now is gone through some very difficult times and very difficult situations. But you're starting to see that team take on his identity of how he wants his team to play. That's a process when you're trying to change culture.
“In a lot of ways, because the culture is here and established in our program, Frank is trying to do that and establish a culture, I'm fighting for our culture. I'm fighting for that right now and Frank is implementing it. Now that his culture is established, I think you're starting to see his team play a lot more consistently to what he wants. When you saw South Carolina's team last year, you could say the same things about this year's team. They're going to really defend hard, they are going to pressure you, they are really physical, they are really going to rebound the basketball and they are going to screen you. The difference between this year and last year, they do it way more consistently for 40 minutes than they did a year ago. That's our problem. We don't do things consistently enough for 40 minutes. That's where, as a coach, I've got to fight for our culture in terms of what that is.”
On how long it took him to establish his culture…
“It was along the same lines as Frank's [Martin], about my third year. I think that's the hardest thing I think for coaches in a lot of ways as it relates to culture. There is a lot of decision to be made early on when you get a job and sometimes coaches feel pressure to sign a bunch of guys and they can make a lot of recruiting mistakes and sign guys that they wish they hadn't of. Sometimes scholarships are very valuable. Sometimes holding onto one is better than actually using one. I would say our culture started to change in about that third year. I don't want to say this, because when I got here, Lon [Kruger] had established a great culture. We had great kids who were very respectful, they went to class, and they worked real hard in practice and did a lot of real positive things.
“I think that when Lon took over here at a time when the culture wasn't great. He came in here, cleaned up a lot of things, brought stability to the program. It took him some time and he gets to a Final Four. He did a lot of great things. I inherited a great program, where there were no problems. I wasn't dealing with drug problems, suspensions or bad attitudes or bad kids. What I was dealing with more than anyone else was a change in style of play. That was probably the biggest difference between Lon and I when I first got here. I think that Lon has continued to evolve as a coach. There was a good culture here when I got here, as it related to the players part of it. In terms of playing the identity that I wanted us to play at and how I saw the game, which was probably the biggest overhaul I had with those guys.”
On finding an identity with this year's team…
“We at times play to our identity and at times we don't. It's one of those things where it's going to be a process. I get it and I think our guys sometimes miss it in a lot of ways. I had Will Muschamp come over and speak to our team this past summer right before they started. I likened our situation to the exact situation he was going through when they were coming off an 11-2 season and then went 4-8. They had an enormous amount of injuries. To me, graduation and injuries are the same. They're not playing. Even though it's not injury we had, we had departures. The thing that Will talked about, which to me hit home, but with our players, I don't know if it did or it didn't, but it resonated with me. He said that you just don't plug guys in and have the same level of success you've had in the past. That's what has happened to our team right now. There is this idea that Patric [Young] is gone, this guy and that guy are gone and Michael Frazier says, 'I'm going to step up and do this,' and Kasey Hill says, 'I'm going to step in now and be the point guard and do that,' and Dorian Finney-Smith says, 'I'm going to move from being the sixth man to becoming the starting power forward,' and Chris Walker, 'I'm going to etcetera.' They all think that it's just all going to go well. It's going to go well, I'm a good player and it's just going to go well. It doesn't work like that, you just don't plug guys in like that. For Chris Walker to get the level of consistency that Patric Young had, it took Patric four years to get to that point. It doesn't happen because you're now ready to play. Scottie Wilbekin, to see the trials and tribulations that kid went through to become a person, it took three years. Kasey Hill is not going to walk in there and become that kind of player. I don't think they ever factored any of those things into the equation going into the season. As much as I tried to jam that home in the summer and get them to believe that, I'm not so sure they ever did. That was an experience that I had gone through on previous teams and I just think they have to go through some of these things and have the scars and I've talked about being calloused. They have to go through that. It's never that easy. You've got to be really hardened when you want to win.
“I think I said this after the UConn game, when you look at teams that are really good, you can trace it back to some unbelievable struggles. I don't know anybody that just popped in and they were just great, just because they were. There is an exception to every situation and I get that, but that's not the way the world works. That's not the way life works. Anything that you achieve that is of great accomplishment, it can be traced back to incredible struggles. To the public eye, watching those guys get to Elite Eights and winning conference championships and that was great, but they had their heart cut out in SEC Championship games. They had their heart cut out in Elite Eight games with the opportunity to go to Final Fours. That group last year could have realistically gone to four Final Fours. They played to go to four Final Fours and they only got to one and it was the last time. Those are painful experiences. To the average person they'd say, 'Wow, what a deep run,' but I never think it ends well unless you're the one holding the trophy at the very end. There is always a hurt and a pain that you are going to feel. The same thing could be said for Ohio State and Oregon. It's going to end and someone is going to say, 'Wow, that was an incredible year,' but for those players, whoever loses, it is going to be a real painful situation. It just is.”
On the development of Chris Walker and Kasey Hill…
“Here's what I'm going to say: Chris Walker's expectation is up here, but the reality is I've got to deal with him every day. I've got to deal with him every day. So here is a kid, the first day of practice, walks into our practice facility with a protein bar in his mouth and his shoes untied getting ready to stretch. 'Chris, what are you doing?' 'Well, I was hungry.' 'Did you eat lunch?' 'No.' 'Have you eaten today?' 'No.' Just getting him to understand that you've got to get up, you've got to eat, you've got to eat lunch, you've got to eat before you come to practice, you've got to have your shoes tied; he didn't know. Where he was a year ago to where he is now, he's made incredible strides, unbelievable strides. But the problem is, if everybody else's expectations are up here, people aren't seeing the same thing I'm seeing from a regular basis every day. He's gotten better and he's improved.
“I think the same thing can be said for Kasey Hill. Kasey Hill was a guy that didn't play with a lot of passion and energy all the time. He kind of floated, sometimes he'd turn it on and he had these glimpses. He's much, much more consistent this year than he was last year and at any point in time in his career. But is he Chris Paul right now? No. But if that's your expectation then you're probably going to be a little bit disappointed in that. It's not reality and that's the hardest thing I think for a lot of these guys is when you have guys that come in with a lot of expectations and people think, 'Wow, this guy is going to be this, this and this' and he's not, the first thing that comes into mind is just disappointment. You're disappointed. And I always felt for Patric Young in that way, in a lot of ways. Everyone saw this body and size and we signed him and he's a great kid and everything else. The expectation, Patric was never, ever able to live up to, and in a lot of ways I felt bad for him. He was such a great team guy, he was such a great defender, but you know what, he wasn't Hakeem Olajuwon from the low post. That's okay. He did a lot of things to help us win a lot of games and he always represented himself in a first-class fashion. He's an unbelievable kid and that's the thing that I have to deal with these guys in terms of getting them to realize who they are. And that's where I think most players come into a lot of difficulty is when they don't play to who they are. They play to something that they think that everybody else wants them to be and I think Chris and Kasey just need to be comfortable in their own skin and play to who they are. But I do see strides in growth and development in those two guys.”
On developing a team dynamic…
“We're not there. We've spent a lot of time. We've spent a lot of time and it's a different thing. It's not, 'I don't like you,' it's not that. It's the wrong approach going into a game in terms of feeling like me, me, me, me, I, I, I, I, I have to score, my ego needs to be satisfied. They don't do anything to make each other better. And if there's one guy that makes our team better than anybody else, it's Jake Kurtz. He makes our team better. And I'd throw maybe Kasey [Hill] and Doe Doe [Dorian Finney-Smith] in there too. Those three guys, they make people around them better. The other guys need to start investing in making other people better, and that's where, we don't have a divide in our team, but that's where they're divided. They want to play well, and they get so focused and locked in on themselves that they can't help anybody else, and that's where I think the connection comes from.”
On teams focusing on shutting down Michael Frazier…
“You know that hasn't really happened to be honest with you. I think if you look down at our stats sheet, one of the things I always look at is our guys' shooting percentage, what we're shooting and always try to evaluate what kind of shots we're getting. He's taken more shots than anybody else on our team. He's getting his opportunities. This is not a situation where you look down at the stat sheet and say, 'Well, geez, you know, Michael Frazier's only getting four shots a game, I've got to find ways to get him more shots.' He's taking more shots than anybody on our team. He's gotten pretty good looks and he's been out there long enough. He has not shot the ball at the level he has the previous year and I think some of that is the stress of pressure he's placed on himself that has probably affected some of that. But, you know, I feel pretty good about the looks he's getting, and he's got freedom to shoot the basketball because he does it well. But, you know, he's had some opportunities. You mentioned I think after the UConn game the drive to the basket, probably wasn't the best decision to try to shoot it over [Amida] Brimah. Probably should've dropped it off to [Jacob] Kurtz. He had a couple good looks there that didn't go down, we ran a play for him, he missed it, that's part of the game. But you can't get so focused on the fact that you're missing shots that you can't do other things. And then what happens is, I'll give this to you guys, because you guys love this stuff.
“So every game, we keep, and I'm not going to give you the names, that's not important. But every game we do a plus/minus. And all the plus/minuses, when you're in the game, do we score more points than the opponent? Every guy. Game by game, year by year. So, if you're on the floor and we lose points, that's a minus. If you're on the floor and we gain points, that's a plus. So, that obviously gets impacted and affected by the guys who are on the floor with you. But over a long or, seven, eight, ten games, you can kind of get a body of work so to speak. We have two guys on our entire team that are in positive. Two. Now, how do you get into a positive? Well, the way you get into a positive is by doing the things that you have control over: blocking out, getting back in transition, communication, pick and roll coverage, first to the floor, loose basketball. Those are things that kind of impact the game. But when you only have two guys, to me, that's a real, real direct correlation to the fact that we are not focused on the things that really actually go into winning. We're focused on, like I said to you, 'I want to play well, I want to do well, because if I do well it's going to help the team.' And that's been my struggle with them is to get them focused on the things that really impact the outcome of the game. And we are focused on them sometimes but then we lose that focus.”
On the strength of the SEC…
“Yeah, I said on the teleconference this is not out of any disrespect to anybody in our league. When you start your season, you're basically doing two things. You're watching your team and you're watching your opponent and getting your team prepared for the next thing that's getting ready to come. So, I have not really watched. The only team that I've seen play just because it's a common opponent that I watched the game film was Kansas versus Kentucky in the first half. That's the only team that I really have seen. I haven't really seen anybody else play, other than you look at their records and some of the wins you mentioned that our league has done a lot better in the nonconference schedule than maybe we have done in the past, which would indicate to me that the league has grown, gotten better and probably, right now, Kentucky appears to be the team. And again, I haven't seen enough film, but just based on what I saw for a half, they're clearly probably head and shoulders above everybody else, would be my guess. And I haven't seen everybody else play. And then there's probably some teams, you know, below that have had some really, really great quality wins.”
On what can be improved offensively…
“It has been. We've had some times there. But I think the one thing that's happened right now is, it's all part of what I said earlier. When you score 37 points in the first half and the ball's hopping around and we're really good and we're getting looks, and then on top of that, I think we were 6-for-12 in the first half from the free throw line, we still have 37 points. So what's the difference? It's not like we all of a sudden come out of the locker room, we went from playing against UConn to a different team. We all of a sudden get a little bit wrapped up in the 'me' and the 'I' and we're not focused on doing our jobs collectively, playing together. And we scored 22 points in the second half and it's not enough. And I'm not saying we need to score 37 again, but you make a few more free throws and you've got 40 points. You're on par for an 80-point game, which with the way we've been playing defense should be plenty for it. But you go in there, you finish up with 37, you're 8-for-20 from the free throw line, we're leaving points there on the board. And then I think what's happened is, when guys have had shots, I don't know if they're even in the right frame of mind to make shots. And with all that being said, we're still at the free throw line with 38 seconds to go to go up by one, and then I think with 22 seconds we're at the free throw line to at least cut it to one, so with some of our offensive lows and struggles there, we still have been in position to win some of these games. I just think we need to be much, much more consistent than we've been.”
On whether or not the team will practice more free throws than usual this week…
“I've got to figure something out because I'm going to tell you one thing: because of the holidays, coming into Florida State, I'm going to say we probably got up, each guy, at least 500. But as I said to you, when the lights are on, it's a little bit different. Those things are actually, creating a game situation in practice from the free throw line, it's a little bit more challenging, where everyone gets an opportunity to do it. That's a little bit more challenging, but we've probably got to try to continue to do some stuff. We're taking them. We're taking them. But those are things, with your team, that you can clearly look and see, 'Okay, we've got to get better shooting from the free throw line.' But to me, I think that's a mindset. That's a mentality. That's a confidence. That's, 'Where's your focus?' and those kinds of things. When you go to the free throw line, you've got to narrow your focus. It doesn't need to be a broad focus.”
On whether or not this year's squad is an NCAA Tournament team…
“I don't know. I don't. Right now, all I can tell you is all I can go off of is our body of work up to this point in time and I would tell you right now we're not an NCAA Tournament team. I think if the team, if it was to be picked right now, the NCAA Tournament, I would say you earn your way into the tournament, I don't believe we've earned our way into the tournament right now. Now obviously we've got 18 more games to play, there's an SEC Tournament to be played, there's still a lot of basketball to be played, things can change. But do I think this is going to change this year based on what I've seen right now? I'd have to say I don't know. I don't know. Now we're going to keep cracking and working at it to get that mindset to try and change and get them in a better place but I think all of you would agree right now based on what we've done up to this point in time being whatever it is, 6-7, 7-6, whatever it is, that's not warranting enough to get to the tournament. I don't think anybody here would disagree with anything I'm saying.
“We have some challenges. We don't have a low post presence in terms of throwing the ball to the basket there to get fouled. We don't get to the free throw line a lot. There's some challenges we've got to overcome. I think there's a lot of challenges every team's got to overcome. There may be a couple teams, a handful of teams in the country, which has everything, the pieces are there for them to be really good and everything, but we're not going to develop a 6'10” 260-pound center that we're going to dump the ball inside to. We haven't had consistent scoring in around the basket at all. We've had a harder time finishing around the basket. Our defense has actually been pretty good, I think it can still get better. We've been inconsistent on offense. So I think all those things are going to need to get a whole lot better before I could say, “Yeah, that's definitely…we're moving in the right direction.' I don't necessarily feel that today. But I don't believe that we can't move in the right direction. I haven't lost hope in that, but I do think for me to sit there blindly and say, 'Hey, all is well.' I'm not going to say that.”
