Billy Donovan Press Conference Quotes
Monday, March 2, 2015 | Men's Basketball
Head coach Billy Donovan gave an update on the team heading into Tuesday's game against Texas A&M during his weekly Monday morning press conference. See what he had to say below.
On how he would define Jacob Kurtz…
One of the things I have always said about players is when you look at a player, that player is always defined by his competitive spirit and nature. You can look at a lot of things that Jake Kurtz can't do – he doesn't shoot threes, he is not a scorer and he is always undersized defensively, has a hard time finishing over length and he is six-foot-four playing the power forward spot. You would never define him by any of those characteristics; you would define him as a guy that gives unbelievable effort, is physical and tough, is a great teammate and makes other people around him better. I think that is how you would define him. He has been great example for other guys on the team, that it's not about your talent level, it's about your competiveness and he has a high level of competiveness and to me he is a great winner.
On what made Texas A&M sophomore forward Kourtney Roberson successful in the previous game…
I think when you watch the film, [Kourtney Roberson] and [Dylan] Jones both had good games. They outran our frontcourt on a lot of plays. We got broken down on some penetration for some dump down passes to those guys. They sealed against our zone. They got a couple points on underneath out of bounds plays. It wasn't so much what you would think where he caught and made post moves. To be honest, a lot of it was him outworking our team; that is where he scored his points and I think he in particular had a great game. He has had a great year for [Texas A&M], and he has done it with a lot of effort.
On the status of Michal Frazier…
Still nothing right now. I would say he is probably not playing. He hasn't practiced at all. He tries to do some shooting and stuff, but he is not cleared for practice at all, so I don't anticipate him playing tomorrow unless I get some miraculous diagnosis from our doctor and trainer saying he is cleared to play, but I don't envision that happening.
On his injury lingering…
I think it is normal protocol – high-ankle sprains are four to six weeks. He has just gotten into his third week, so we have been talking to the trainer and the doctor and this is totally normal for a high-ankle sprain. He has worked hard to try and come back. He is in there getting treatment. The biggest challenge for him right now is stopping and starting; it appears to be painful for him. I also think certain ways he cuts creates some problems. The hardest part from a coaching perspective and also being a trainer is all you can do is go off someone's pain thresholds. When someone says they're hurting and its bothering them, this is one of those injuries where you don't want to keep on pushing because what you are doing is prolonging him actually recovering from a high-ankle sprain. We certainly don't want to put him in harm's way or put him where his recovery is prolonged, but [the training staff] tries to push him up to an edge or a point and I think when he feels pain they try to back off him, and that is the way it has gone. He is not even remotely close to doing those things, in my opinion. He actually doesn't look bad running straight ahead. I think it is the stopping, starting and cutting that has been a problem. Again, how much pain can he tolerate and how much pain is he tolerating is that good for his ankle? I think that is something he and the trainer are going to have to communicate
On any special phone calls or messages after win No. 500…
I have got a lot of friends, family and coaches that have reached out, which is very nice and I am very appreciative of a lot of different people over the last 24 hours that have reached out and corresponded with a lot of really nice remarks.
On whether or not Jacob Kurtz is a rare story…
I think it is just a great lesson in life. I don't think it was that he never viewed himself as a great player. I think he just always wanted to contribute and help in any way he could, and it started with doing laundry and sweeping the floor. Then it moved to, 'Hey, can you play at all? We got a couple guys hurt today and we need to use you for the scout team.' Then, 'Wow, this guy is not that bad. Would you like to play?' 'Oh yeah, I would love to play.' Then he is in practice every day and all of a sudden he is playing and he was very, very cerebral and he was smart and pays attention. I give him a lot of credit for perseverance, patience and resiliency, and being really smart and always being ready. He took advantage of his opportunity and was prepared for his opportunity. Besides that story, he is an unbelievable kid. I really enjoy being around him every day. He has a great sense of humor. He comes across very quiet, but as you get to know him you find out he has a lot of wisdom for a kid his age. I think he sees things very, very clearly for what they are. I talk about trying to help players get to the truth a lot. I think he gets there very, very quickly and understands what he and the team needs to do. We have a lot of guys on the team that are liked and a lot of guys like each other, but I would say he is the most respected guy in our locker room. That speaks volumes. You always want chemistry and for guys to get along and like each other, but for you to make an impact on other people, the people you are trying to impact have to respect you, and he has great respect.
On if Jacob Kurtz earns respect because he has come so far as a player…
When you want to be respected inside of a team sport, you have to be totally selfless, and the last person you have to think about is yourself because your actions, more often than not, display what your intentions are. If you are playing a team sport and you say you are all about the team, but your actions show that you are not and you are more about yourself, that stuff stands out like a sore thumb. His intentions on our team are as pure as anyone I have ever been around. He has no other intentions, but helping our team win and helping those guys get better. This summer we put him in the weight training group at 7 a.m. with Chris Walker because of class schedules. He didn't have to be there at 7 a.m.; he didn't have class, but he was willing to go there to try and help Chris Walker. He rooms with Chris Walker on the road, watches film with Chris, tries to help Chris. Those guys know clearly that there is no agenda of 'Hey I got to go get mine, or I have this NBA career, or where is my draft status?' There is none of that. This is it for him and he wants to win and contribute and he doesn't care about points, minutes or numbers. The most unbelievable thing I have ever witnessed as a coach is because of his intelligence level on the court, when we have had some guys out due to injuries and suspensions, there have been times when in practice we have needed to work against our opponent and I will take Jake and put him with the scout team. For the whole practice, he will go and be on the scout team with the other team. He won't do anything that we are doing, but we need an extra guy. He plays all five positions. Whatever you need him to do, he does and there are no intentions there, and our guys respect him because you are never worried about what angle this guy is coming from. In order to be really, really respected within the team, you have got to be first totally selfless, and he is totally selfless.
On what kind of coach Jacob Kurtz would make…
It's amazing with some of these guys, he's got this really bright…probably could do a lot of other things in his life, and here this guy wants to coach. I find it funny. He would be very good. He would be a really, really good coach. I think the one thing he's got to get better at is Jake has a lot to say, and he's very smart and he's very bright, and what he would say would be very, very helpful to our team. If there's one thing I've struggled with him on it's try to get him to do a little bit more and to be more vocal inside of our team when he sees something that needs to change. Unfortunately, in a lot of ways, Jake has viewed himself and looked at himself as a walk on. 'That's not my place.' Where he doesn't understand I think he's sold himself short in a lot of those areas. I think he would be great. He's going to need to talk more than he talks but I think he would be good.
On how hard it is to take a charge…
There's an art, there's a technique to it. I think a lot of guys look at it as being 'oh my gosh, this is really going to hurt.' And it's not that way at all. He [Jacob Kurtz]'s actually pretty good. The one that he took, I forget who it was we played against, he actually took a knee to his eye and got a black eye. He's good at it. He knows how to do it. It's not as painful a lot of times. I'm not saying they're all not painful, but for the most part if you do it the right way it's not as painful as it looks. But he's got a very, very good skill level at that, and in order to be a good charge guy, you've got to be able to read things before they happen and Jake's always been one of those guys who can see things before they happen on the court. He's always able to get himself in the right position.
On continued efforts to improve free throw shooting…
I mean, we're just trying to practice as much as we can. That's what we're doing. We're trying as best as we can in practice, putting these guys in different challenging situations, trying to create, you know, '10 seconds to go in the game, down by one, one-and-one,' you know, play the situation out. 'Up by one, thirty seconds to go, one-and-one. Down one, tied score.' We try to create that as best we can. And then obviously through repetition. It's what we're trying to continually work on.
On need for improvement in free throw shooting technique…
The one thing I try to focus on in free throw shooting is I think the more movement you have in your shot, the more room there is for error. So these guys have been shooting the ball for 18, 19, 20 years a certain way. When you start getting into mechanically changing a guy, and usually when a guy tells me 'I'm uncomfortable, this doesn't feel right, I'm uncomfortable shooting the ball this way,' I try to back off because the most important thing I think in shooting is you've got to be comfortable with what you're doing. So we can make some minor tweaks and do those things, but it's very, very rare these days that you find a kid that ever really shoots the ball with what I would call picture-perfect form.
On a player jumping from mid-range free throw shooting percentage to high percentage in near future…
No, that's probably not going to happen.
On thinking about Jon Horford's potential future in basketball at Florida while coaching his older brother Al Horford…
I don't know if I said that. I got a chance to see Jon when I went into Al's home when I was recruiting Al. He'd come down a few times and see him at NCAA Tournaments and those kind of things. He was always a very, very nice young man. He's a nice kid. And then obviously I think for him, even talking to Al a little bit about his recruitment, I think for him he wanted to stay maybe a little bit closer to home. I think that was kind of more the intention at that point in time. We did look at him, recruited him a little bit, but I think everybody felt like he wanted to stay in the state. And he obviously did go on to Michigan.
On what it's been like coaching Jon Horford…
I'm happy he's had an opportunity to play. I feel like he's gotten better, he's improved. I think there was a lot for him to learn in terms of going from one system to another. I've really always admired his work ethic. He's a guy that eats right every single meal, he's going to get his rest, he's going to go to bed early, he's going to take care of himself, he's going to be the first guy to show up every day, he's going to be the last guy to leave, he's going to put time and energy and effort in there. And I've really always admired his work ethic. He's got a phenomenal work ethic, as good of a work ethic as I've been around.
On Jon Horford being the philosopher of the team…
He comes across a little bit like that. He likes to share his opinions.
On if Jon Horford has ever said anything to leave him wondering what he's talking about…
No, not really. Not really. I think we're all shaped by our experiences and stuff. He's had a lot of different experiences. Jon's a very, very bright kid. He's very, very well-rounded. There's a lot of things he can do besides play basketball. He's a very talented kid, well-spoken kid, well-read. I think he's smart. I'm sure for him with the amount of time and energy he's put into the game he wants to play, but whenever his time is over playing, he's going to be successful in whatever he wants to do.
On seeing his consecutive 20-win season streak potentially end at 16…
I think one of the things, even after we went through the transition period after 2007, I'm not so sure our schedule was as good. So maybe some of those records, weren't, so to speak. I think when you get three or four NIT games, your non-conference is not great and then you're walking into the conference schedule with 11 wins. This team, in looking back, I'm happy that our schedule is a lot more challenging. Because I felt like when we were going into the league back then, we didn't have a good feel for a true sense of who we were. I felt like because we went on the road and played Kansas and we played UConn; we went to the Bahamas and we played North Carolina and we played Georgetown; we played Miami too and went on the road to Florida State; even Yale, playing them, I know we beat them handedly but they went on the road and they beat UConn. We played a really, really challenging schedule. I think our record is a legitimate record, so to speak. You can look at someone's record and you kind of trace back a little bit and say 'well geez, their schedule hasn't been really, really challenging.' I think we are what our record says we are. We're not a great team, I don't think we're an awful team, we're a very, very average team. That's what we are. Listen, there's all sorts of different milestones and things that get broken, good and bad. We'd like to continue on [with that streak]. It's always been like the 20-win barrier mark but it is what it is. Hopefully these guys can learn from what they've been through, because for these guys, there's a lot of things in terms of program, that I think these guys feel bad about that have stopped. [Such as] home winning streaks, as you mentioned 20 wins. There's a lot of things that were going on for a while that have kind of stopped. I think for those guys, that's been something that they have been disappointed about and feel bad about. The only thing we can do is learn from these experiences.
On whether his 2007, 08 and 09 teams were average, too…
I would say that maybe those teams were. [But] let's be honest now, we had three pros on that team. They were young in [Marrese] Speights, [Nick] Calathes and [Chandler] Parsons. It took some time for those guys to figure it out. Obviously, Nick left after his sophomore year and so did Speights, so they weren't around a long period of time. That team was a little bit more gifted and more talented than this current team. But, I think if you look back at our non-conference schedule back then and I'll be the first one to tell you, going into that year, I thought, 'we're losing all of these guys and we're coming in with a lot of freshmen. We probably need to, at least get our feet wet', and we didn't play as highly as a competitive schedule. Where that hurt us was going into SEC [play]. We got off to a relatively decent start but I don't know if we were really challenged and seasoned enough like we were this year. I would say those teams, in my opinion, I don't know what we were in the league, .500 maybe? Maybe 8-8? I just think that that is an average team. We were an average team. We weren't one of the better teams in the league. We were very average.
On what he's looking for from his team between now and the end of the season…
I don't think there is anything per-say that I'm looking for. I want these guys to continually learn and understand what goes into winning. For example, in the Tennessee game, part of the reason that we were able to maintain the lead [we had] was two reasons. We defended the three-point line and we did not foul. That has been the two things that have happened to our team in the second half. Of all the games that we have had leads in, we've given up an enormous amount of three's and we have fouled too much. Because of a lack of discipline and a lack of focus or the game is not going well for 'me' and I lose my focus and I get distracted. Can we get better at the things that go into winning? We did it against Tennessee. Can we do it tomorrow? Can we do the things that really, ultimately go into winning? That's really what I want to see. I thought we played in the Tennessee game winning basketball. Now, calling it like it is, Tennessee was extremely undersized up front. And we had a lot of finishes around the basket. I think we had six or seven layups in the first half. Part of it had to do with that they didn't have size and protection at the basket. So we were able to finish some plays. Chris Walker got a couple dunks, [Jon] Horford got a dunk, Doe-Doe [Dorian Finney-Smith] had a couple of drives. They didn't have any presence at the basket, so that could be a little bit misleading. I thought we defended well, I thought we defended the three-point line well, and I thought that we did a very, very good job of not fouling. I thought those things were a step in the right direction. When they made a run and they cut it down to 15 or 14 or whatever it was, we maintained our composure and we kept playing and some good things happened for us. In some previous games we've had some meltdowns. So I just want to see us play closer to our style of play, what we've talked about since October, at a high level than maybe we have during the year. Where the results end at the end of the game, we will take them. But, at least we need to be moving closer to that.
On whether UF is still looking to add players for next season…
I think we're done. You know, we will have some new guys coming in and we will obviously have some other guys returning but yeah, for the most part. The recruiting of this senior class is done.
On Lexx Edwards potentially returning to the team next year…
Lexx [Edwards] has a chance to come back and play. He still has another year of eligibility. I'd love for Lexx to come back but he's got to make that choice at the end of the year. He's been another guy that's been a great addition. I appreciate what he's been able to do for us. He's been extremely, extremely helpful in practice in a lot of ways. He does have the ability to play one more year but a lot of it will be up to him. [Note: Edwards is graduating this Spring and will participate in Senior Night on Tuesday.]
