Billy Donovan Press Conference Quotes
Monday, March 9, 2015 | Men's Basketball
Head coach Billy Donovan held his weekly press conference on Monday and discussed the upcoming SEC Tournament where the Gators take on Alabama on Thursday.
On UF's position in the SEC Tournament bracket and facing Alabama…
You play your way to those points. Playing Alabama and seeing them in late January, I think a lot has changed. Certainly the loss of [Michael] Frazier for us, and their point guard, [Ricky] Tarrant, who was having a really, really good year. They have to deal with some different injuries and different situations just as we have. I think both teams are probably very different than we were when we played in January. It is one of those things where the rest of the year you are playing to continue and advance. Alabama had a great win against A&M and we will have some time to prepare since we have three days until Thursday. We had to take yesterday off. At least we will be able to get our guys familiar with some of the things they are doing.
On watching film and looking at the turnovers from the Kentucky game…
They were what I thought they were in the game. We got some penetration down the lane and we got the ball to the basket. We just didn't make good decisions. Kasey [Hill] made one where he tried to throw it behind his back and out of bounds. Chris Chiozza tried to wrap and pass, Doe-Doe [Dorian Finney-Smith] got in there a couple of times and got his shot blocked. There are just better decisions to make when people are open and being able to make the extra pass against a team like Kentucky, who is coming in to protect the basket. There were guys open, but from a coach's perspective, it is easy to look back on film and say the ball should have went there or went there. When those guys are playing the game, they have to make those instantaneous decisions, and I thought the turnovers didn't kill us, but they did hurt. Chiozza had one when he tried to reverse pivot and Harrison shot the gap and it's hard to make those kind of plays on the road against a team like Kentucky and overcome them.
On going to the SEC Tournament…
Hopefully they are excited to play. You get to go somewhere and play on a neutral site. It is an opportunity to play again. I think over the last couple of weeks our guys have gotten better as a team. I think the one thing that I am not trying to say as an excuse for our team, but it is just a reality, is this team probably was way overscheduled in terms of where we're at and where they are at. With that being said, I think it is the best thing that could have happened. I think it gives us the best opportunity to get into the NCAA Tournament and gives us the best opportunity to find out who we are really as a team. When it is all said and done at the end of the day, our RPI is going to be somewhere in the top-10, and I think when you look at our conference schedule, we have one of the most difficult conference schedules, too. I think our guys have gotten better. You look at the result of winning and losing, but I have seen some growth and some progress and some strides in our team.
On what you hope to accomplish over the last couple games…
I don't even think it's about accomplishing; it's about really trying to play better and better and improve – for guys to improve individually and collectively. Obviously, the goal is to win. I don't think there is a different agenda from last year's team. We are going in there to play against Alabama and try to see if we can move on and advance and play again on Friday. In order for us to do that, we will have to grow and get better as a group.
On if he agrees with Iona head coach Tim Cluess' statement that the college game is too slow on offense…
I have always been in favor of a shorter shot clock. Now what that number is, is it from 35 to 24 or to 30, I don't know. Tim [Cluess] and I went to the same high school together and grew up in the same town, so I have known Tim for a long time. [Iona] plays fast. I like playing the game fast and playing in transition and tempo. Last year's team, at times, could not play fast, and the reason being was we were so good defensively that we were in the top-five of longest length of possession over the course of the game. It was over 22 seconds. So if you play really good defense, and if teams are disciplined enough, you are going to have to get late into the shot clock to shoot the basketball. So, that is my whole point in the shot clock getting shorter, is it actually helps the better defensive teams. Instead of having to play an extra five or ten seconds, now teams have got to get a shot off in that time. So last year, for as much as we wanted to play fast and push the basketball, it is hard to play fast if a team wants to hold the ball, milk the clock and just be very patient and elect to break your defense down. I think any coach would say that the first five to eight seconds on a missed shot you are trying to push it and get something early. After that, you got another 25 seconds that you can play with to make really good decisions on what kind of shot you want to get off. So sometimes the pace of the game has a lot to do with your defense. If we just went 'Olé!' and moved out of the way for the first 10 seconds and let the team shoot and score, you would be able to get a lot more possessions. So, sometimes your defense dictates the pace of the game if you can play good defense.
On UF's offense…
Well it's really interesting, because if you look at it when we've had more than an average of 35 possessions per half, our offensive efficiency rating has been drastically low. I mean substantially low. With this group, the longer and more possessions we have, the more we have not handled them well. Our best offensive efficiency has been when we've gotten in-between 32 and 34 possessions per game, we've been really efficient offensively. When we've gotten up over 35, 36 or 37 our offense has been really, really poor. So there's a fine line there in terms of us struggling to shoot the basketball and [for us] to take certain kind of shots that I would consider a low percentage shot for a player. I mean, [when] you look at the stat sheet we've got three or four guys that are in the low-to-mid-twenties from the three-point line. And then obviously, we have not been a great free throw shooting team either. So, you want to take really, really, good shots that are available but I'm not so sure that I want Kasey Hill coming down in the first 10 seconds and bombing a three-point shot. I don't think that's good for our team, I don't think that's good for him. Now, in the first 10 seconds [of the shot clock] if he can get to the rim and create penetration, that would be fine. But, I think that you want to be able to run offense to try to get the kind of shots that guys are capable of making and that would be good shots for them. Certainly it's not a situation of where we're trying to go down there and hold the ball. But, we don't need to just jack up and bomb up shots with a team that's shooting the ball from where we've shot the ball from.
On what he remembers from UF's team in 1997-98…
We obviously had a hard team those first couple years. I think we had Dan Williams, who was a walk-on, Joe Reinhart was a walk-on. I thought we had two really good players that Lon [Kruger] left here in Greg Stolt and Eddie Shannon that were sophomores that we coached for three years. But, they were really good, solid players. I inherited Greg Williams for I think a year, than he left. Jason Anderson left and came back and then left again, as he had some injuries. Greg Cristell stopped playing. Mike McFaul blew his knee out and then he couldn't play anymore. I think we had Damien Maddox for a year, but it was just kind of a make-shift of guys. But, the two guys that I thought were good players for us and actually got an opportunity to play quite a bit was Eddie Shannon and [Greg] Stolt. And then obviously Jason Williams became eligible that following year.
On what the team can take away from this season…
Everything that has happened this year for these guys is, to me, an incredible foundation for learning. Because I would tell you that going into this year, their expectation level of how they thought they were individually, [and] how good they thought we were as a team was so far from reality. That was really my point of the some of the things that I tried to do in the offseason to present an argument and a case of how much they had to get better. I felt like our schedule of going to Kansas, playing North Carolina, playing Georgetown, the Bahamas [trip] was early and challenging. [I thought] that would get them to see how much growth and development they all have to go through as a team and individually. I think from that point forward, we've gotten better with the commitment level and we've gotten better at some of the discipline things that we've struggled with. But, it's not at the level it even remotely needs to be at. It's just not. I didn't know what our record would be, but as a coach, you can get a really, really clear understanding of what a team's mental makeup [is] and what's in their mind going into the season. And going into this season was about as bad as I've ever been around. I don't mean bad in terms of bad attitudes. Bad in terms of not even remotely close to reality. When you have a team of guys like that that don't know, and that's what they think reality is and they are so far from reality; now all of a sudden, it's like 'wow, I didn't expect this.' Or, 'why is this happening?' So from there you go through a whole period of being in denial and we're going to be ok and that everything is fine, to where you start to get frustrated to the point where you hit kind of rock bottom and that's when you realize that I need to get better, I need to change my approach and my mental approach towards competition. That's really what's happened to our team. We're not overly talented and we're not overly gifted, but they have to utilize each other in order to be a good team. As I've said before, I have not been able to get them to deal with the reality in a real genuine, true sense. Maybe part of that is that there is a process that they have to go through in order for that mentality to change. I look at it as, while they're here this is a season, but after this year is over with, how do they actually learn and grow? I don't believe that just because you go through an experience that the next year makes you better. I don't believe that happens. I think next year we could be right back in the same situation that we are now. That would not surprise me one bit with where our team's mentality is. It's not like they're bad guys or they're not coachable or they are not anything else like that. It's, they are going to have to figure out how to compete and play and be consistent and disciplined at a much, much higher level. And until they get committed to those things you're going to kind of end up having the same kind of group of guys with the same kind of results. That's kind of how I look at the whole thing.
On the outlook for this team next year…
I think we've got great kids. I really, really enjoy coaching them. I think there's a process I have to go through with them. I've told this to you before, I feel an incredible amount of responsibility as a coach to try and help them and teach them what really, really goes into winning. We've got some guys that are really, really coachable. We've got some guys that have got some flaws that any team or any player does have. But the biggest thing to me that needs to change is your mindset and that's the biggest question. Will it actually change or is this just who we are? This is just who we are. And I think, you know, only time will tell in that.
On possibly lowering the difficulty level of next season's schedule…
No, I think that we're going to continue from a standpoint of trying to play a highly competitive schedule. I think sometimes your schedule can look really good on paper before the year starts. Like I'm sure some of these teams said, 'Okay, you know, we're playing Florida.' Well, Florida wasn't as good as maybe two people thought we were going to be this year so what happens is you look at some of these games in August and September, but then as the year, you know, plays itself out, the schedule doesn't maybe look or seem as challenging. So we're going to continue to schedule like that just because I think it's good for those guys that they have to deal with high-level, really, really good teams and you know, again, was this team good enough to play a top-10 schedule? Probably not, but it at least gives them a measuring stick of how much better they have to get when you talk about playing Georgetown, North Carolina, Kansas, playing Kentucky twice, teams in this league. I think it gives you a much better barometer or measuring stick for where you need to get to by playing against some of these teams.
On Dorian Finney-Smith's dunk in the last game against Alabama…
Well, I mean, he obviously made a great shot-fake. I mean, he had a pretty clear path to the basket and the guy underneath the rim was kind of in a bad situation because you're inside the halo so you can't really take a charge, you can't really jump. So he made a great job in terms of shot-faking and driving it where there was a game I think maybe a couple games before that against Ole Miss I got disappointed. We put the ball in his hands with 15 seconds to go, I think it may have been a one-point game and he's got all this space up top and he lets a three go. It's fine to shoot a three on an extra pass, but at least at the end of the game you want to get some momentum going towards the basket at least for a foul or to create some kind of penetration to open the floor up and kick it out. I thought he just made the right decision to drive the ball on that play.
On taking advantage of attacking the rim against Alabama…
Well, you know we got very, very fortunate because if you look at the game, Jimmie Taylor was in foul trouble right away. He picked up two fouls, he never got in the flow of the game. I mean he's kind of been an anchor to their defense, he's a really good shot-blocker, he's continued to get better and he's improved. But I think he had two charge fouls early in the game, which put him to the bench, and then he picked up a couple early in the second half. He never really got into the flow of the game and it probably took away some of their length at the basket, where Dorian [Finney-Smith] was able to drive the ball at the end of the game.
On entering the SEC Tournament in a very different situation than last season…
Yeah, I don't think about anything that happened last year. I mean, all we're trying to do right now is get prepared for Alabama. You know, we've got a couple days to get ready for them and then, you know, whether or not you're fortunate enough to advance, you know, you would play Kentucky and they obviously, we have, you know I think we'll be with inside of a week playing against them. So at least on a quick turnaround like that there is some preparation that we will understand playing against them. But I think hopefully our guys are excited to play. Excited to play and excited to practice and continue to try and get better
