Billy Donovan Time Quotations

I wouldn't classify our team with the way we play defense as a shot-blocking team. I think one of the things you always leave yourself vulnerable to, any time you have big people leaving the floor, is offensive rebounding and foul trouble.

If someone wants to say, 'What Florida has done to this point in time means absolutely nothing... the regular season doesn't mean anything... the Southeastern Conference tournament championship means nothing.' That's fine.

He was almost in tears because, for the first time in his life, he wasn't getting an opportunity to play. I told him, this is going to come to an end this season. And when it does, your time is here.

Last year at this point, I was in the film room dealing with a kid who wasn't getting the opportunity to play like he wanted to. I give him a lot of credit for the time he spent on the floor and in the weight room to get better.

Our basketball team this year has played with energy; they've played with passion and enthusiasm. And this time of year, those things will keep you around and keep you in the game, but they're not good enough to win the game.

It is so hard when you have departures all the time to stay at the highest level. It's almost like coaching junior college now, and people want to level to stay up high.

We don't have the luxury of making a mistake on the backboard, and we make mistake after mistake. For every time one of our guys gets praise for blocking a shot, when they don't, they give up position by leaving the floor too early.

We have been right there. There have been some things that have been out of our control a little. I think our guys have put themselves in positions to win, and you are not going to have them all go your way. . . . What our team has done to this point in time and the way they have battled, I think it's pretty impressive.

Did I think I would be here for 10 years? You never know. You almost have to go one year at a time and try to do the very best job you can. . . . It's very hard to stay at a place a very, very long period of time.

Everybody talks about the end result. You're playing for the national championship. I think the only experience I tried to use from 2000 was, you've got to want this night to last as long as you can. You've got to want them to put more time on the clock. You've got to love playing.

I've been in this league a long time and I never feel like the SEC is given its due. If you look around the country right now, there are leagues out there that are very top heavy, but there are not many out there that have the balance that our conference has. If you look at what some of our teams have done to quality opponents outside the league, it's pretty impressive.

The thing that gave me the most enjoyment on the bench is that I've never seen so many players at one time wanting to see him do it, wanting to see him grab a rebound or get an assist or score. I've never seen anything like that.

Someone told me his comments after the game was he put blame on himself. That's wrong. If anything I hold myself more accountable than I would hold him. The only thing I told him in that situation is not get ahead of himself and say, I probably should have called time out. That's probably what we needed to do. But hopefully next time he'll be able to learn.

Sometimes, it's about players. The makeup of these guys, they've come into the season and played unselfish. We're fortunate to be 12-0 but at the same time have done the things that we needed to do offensively and defensively to win those games.

This time of year, everybody's banged up. I think you could see how hard it is to play back-to-back nights.

This will be our second time to face South Carolina this season. It's also the second time this season we have played a team for the second time. They played with great emotion the last time we played each other. We got off to a good start early, but they were the better team that night. It was a six-point win for them, but they had us down 15 points at one point. This game will be a challenge for us. They have competitive kids and they totally out performed us. They beat us in every facet of the game. The challenge to our team is to take it one game to the next. Our last time against them is over. Our last home game is over.

This is going to be the most time that we have had off to get ready for an opponent since December. I am hopeful that during that time that we can continue to improve and turn the focus on ourselves.

I'm concerned a little bit that it may go through our team. If anybody does come back positive, we'll try to start them on some antibiotics. This is the time of year, but I don't use that as an excuse. . . . We all have to deal with challenges and different things that happen throughout the course of the year.

If you do the same thing against those guys every single time down the floor, they're eventually just going to pick you apart. So we just tried to change. We tried to get some weak-side help sometimes. We got up in the lane to try to discourage post feeds. We tried to get around and front.

Every time we were ready to blow it open, they hit a three.

It's an area he's invested a lot of time in. It would have been very difficult for us (Wednesday night) had he gone 12-for-22 from the line, or 10-for-22 from the line.

I really don?t believe that seeding means a whole lot or makes a whole lot of difference anymore. It used to be a time where you got that No. 1 or No. 2 seed and you felt pretty good about trying to get to that Elite Eight. I think those times have changed.

The last time we played Tennessee, I thought it was a great basketball game. Both teams played well. It was a tie score with 20 seconds to go. Both teams played a pretty balanced game. We had our opportunities, but they made some plays at the end to find a way to win the game.