Billy Donovan Press Conference on Going to the Final Four
On what kind of guidance he provides to the guys going into the Final Four:
“Well,
I think that you get into a situation during the course of the year
that you kind of get into a routine. Then you go to the Final
Four, it's like the Super Bowl in a lot of ways. There are a lot
of different demands on your time when you travel. Most of the
time we travel even to the SEC Tournament or even to the NCAA
Tournament, outside of some open shootarounds, for the most part you're
traveling schedule is relatively the same. This is a very, very
time consuming thing, and there's a lot of things that I think can
distract you from playing.”
“There is obviously an enormous
amount of attention placed on the event, and our guys just need to
understand that we're there to play basketball. We've been
fortunate enough to get an opportunity to play another 40
minutes. Sometimes with all that takes place in the Final Four,
you can really, really get distracted on some of those things, so it
will be very important that we keep ourselves focused mentally and
emotionally, and even physically on things that we need to do to get
ourselves prepared to play on Saturday.”
On looking back at the recruitment of Scottie Wilbekin:
“Yeah,
it worked out great with Scottie. I think the story is well
documented in terms of him electing to bypass his senior year of high
school and give that up. I think he's continued to grow and
develop over his four years here. I've enjoyed being around him,
coaching him. Then I also think from a standpoint of him being a
Gainesville kid, I think there are a lot of positives that can come
through him of what he's been through as a player. I think he's
got an opportunity to be a role model in a lot of ways in this
community for a lot of different kids.”
On his team’s ability to make spreads and stretch leads:
“Yeah,
that's happened for us during the course of the year. I think one
of the things I think it all comes down to is on the defensive end of
the floor. It's very, very difficult to go on runs if you don't
get stops. I think a lot of our runs can be predicated on the
fact that defensively we've gotten stops, and stops get you out on the
break. I think one of the most difficult things to do defensively
is get back in transition for any team. So if you can get stops
and you can get out on the break, you give yourself an opportunity to
go on a run. Maybe to press a steal here and there or get a
couple of good possessions on defense, but inevitably a run is really
going to take place predicated on what you do defensively. If you
get some good defensive stops and stances, you've got an opportunity to
go on some runs.”
On Scottie’s ability to close games and where that came from:
“I've
said this before; for him, he's got an enormous amount of confidence in
himself. But there are guys that can have that kind of confidence
and not have a real good awareness. What I mean by that is when
you're in those situations, if you were just determined to shoot the
basketball, regardless of what the defense does and then you've got
other guys open for shots, and that's not good, you know? And
there are certain guys that have an ego that they want to take the last
shot. They want to be the hero. A lot of times taking the
last shot may or may not be the right play. I remember in the
Arkansas game, he made a great play and he shot the ball and sent it to
overtime. Then there was another play late in overtime where he
drove it, and he had three guys on him, he threw the ball back out to
Dodo for a wide open three, which Dodo made, and I think took the lead
from 2 to 5. You've got to have a good awareness when the ball is
in your hands of being able to make those kind of decisions. I
think for Scottie he's done a real, real good job of balancing both,
himself and some other guys.”
“I thought in the Dayton game we
got caught way too much with the ball in his hands. He got
caught. I thought he created a couple really good shots for
himself that he normally has made. But I just didn't like our
movement there. Our guys have to be able to help him. When
he drives and gets in the lane, guys have to move and get open and try
to help him.”
“But coming down the stretch in that situation, I
think the worst thing you can do as a player is have this predetermined
mentality that I'm going to shoot. You can have a predetermined
mentality of I'm going to be aggressive and try to make a play
here. But once the floor starts to move, now you've got to be
pretty good of being able to see what's going on, what's happening and
being able to make the next read and the next play.”
On taking a ‘business like’ approach to Dallas:
“I
think the first thing for us right now the beginning part of this week
is we had to take off yesterday is one, mentally getting prepared to
play on Saturday. I also think, two, that we've got to get
ourselves back physically too. I think both games against UCLA
and against Dayton were difficult battling games. It kind of came
down to the last minute or two. So physically us getting back.”
“The
one thing that's probably good for us going into Saturday's game is at
least there is somewhat of a familiarity on our part and probably their
part as well playing against each other, even though it was a while ago
in December. Our guys are familiar with their personnel and
playing against their team. Then trying to make some adjustments
and changes of things that we can learn from the last time we played
them.”
“But the biggest thing I think right now is what I try to
do this time, right now this early part of the week is these guys have
got to get their personal stuff out of the way. I think when you
go to a Final Four, there is a lot of stuff coming at them. I
can't even imagine the amount of people that want tickets from them and
people want this or that. There are a lot of things. I need
to give them time to handle their personal stuff. That's what
yesterday and today will be for them. You need to get that stuff
out of the way.”
“Then this afternoon, we need to move forward
in terms of the preparation part of that. I think for our staff,
our trainers, strength coaches, we've got to get them back
physically. Mentally getting them now ready to take that next
step, because, again, there are going to be a lot of things
coming at them. Most of the time you win or lose the game and you
move to the next thing. This is a different situation. It's
just different. Having a chance and being fortunate to be part of
some of these events, I've got to try to help them understand what
they're walking into. In doing that, they've got to really,
really pay attention to just them doing their job of moving to the next
thing and not get is distracted by all this event brings to it.”
“It's
the greatest time of the year. It's an unbelievable
weekend. It's kind of the culmination of the college basketball
season, but at the same point, we're here to play. We've got to
get ourselves ready to play. We're not ready to play right
now. We don't need to be ready to play right now. This is
probably going back to the SEC Tournament, the last time we've had
maybe a complete week, so to speak, where we're going to be able to be
prepared to play. Now coming out of that week, going into the
game against Missouri, we did not play well in the first half, so we've
got to make sure that we get this week off, because I think not only
for us but the rest of the teams playing, everybody's dealing with a
week right now that you want to be really ready to play once Saturday
comes around.”
On the impact of three of the four teams having experienced the facility in Dallas:
“I
don't know. It's obviously a unique situation. It's really
the first time or second time I should say, because we played in the
Georgia Dome at the SEC Tournament. But I think we're going to
have enough time to get familiarized with ourselves. Last year we
had a lot of those guys played in that building. We'll have a
chance to practice there on Thursday. We'll have an open
shootaround on Friday. I think that we have more than enough time
to get ourselves acquainted and familiar with the building in terms of
being in there.”
“But I think anytime you play in that kind of
Dome setting, it is a little bit different. That place is as big
of a place as I've ever been into. It's a gorgeous
building. But it will be for us a situation where we have enough
time that we can get prepared to play in that building with the
opportunity the NCAA gives us to shoot ask work out and practice there.”
On his team being ‘battle ready’ heading into the Final Four:
“I
think our non conference schedule helped us get prepared. I don't
think there is any question. I think going on the road to UCONN,
going on the road to Wisconsin, playing Memphis, playing Florida State,
playing Kansas, we've played some neutral sites. We've played
road games. We've played home games. I don't think there is
any question our non conference schedule helped prepare us for the
league. I think our league helped prepare us for postseason.”
“So
we've gone against a lot of different styles, a lot of different
systems, and a lot of different quality of team. So I think the
experiences we've gone through, it's not like we're going to see
anything from anybody playing on Saturday. We've already played
UCONN. Our guys have familiarity with them. They have a
familiarity with us because we did play against each other this year.”
On what it was like for the team when they got back Sunday morning:
“Yeah,
it was great. There were several hundred fans out there at 1
o'clock in the morning, which is always nice. I always appreciate
people doing that. I think our guys enjoyed it. I think any
time you win a game like that, you come home, it's always a great plane
trip home, and certainly for us the last three years it's not been a
pleasant plane trip home. So it was nice to see people out there
and I think our guys enjoyed that.”
On how the team has embraced his motivational tactics this year compared to others:
“I
feel like these guys were bought into what we're doing. I think
it's a lot easier to get bought into what anybody's doing when you
win. It's a lot easier to be more connected. It's a lot
easier to buy into a strength coach. It's a lot easier to buy
into practice. It's a lot easier to buy into everything when
things are going well. The difficult part even going back with
these guys as freshmen or sophomores, as a young kid, you come into
college thinking that you understand the way the world works. You
have an understanding of why things happen as they do. When
things don't go your way, it causes you to pause and reflect and to try
to find out a solution. I think one of the greatest things and
one of the most difficult things in life is when something doesn't go
the way you want it to go is to legitimately find the answer and the
reason of why it didn't go and make the correction.”
“I think a
lot of times you're dealing with young players, and I use Patric in
this example. One of the things for him that he's gotten
tremendously better at was his work ethic. He was a guy a lot of
you remember had this great spurts of energy and passion, and then all
of a sudden he would disappear. He never realized that that was a
byproduct of practice. That's how he practiced, and that's how he
ended up playing.”
“He's gotten so much more consistent in
practice each and every day of being a consistent worker with a great
attitude, and he's been much, much more reliable on that. I'm not
so sure early in his career he ever bought into that fact that the
practice part of it was a reflection of him in games. I think it
built up a lot of frustration in him. As we talked about, he had
all these expectations, Dwight Howard, and this, and this. I
think for him it was confusing.”
“To me it's like having open
heart surgery, and the doctor tells you, listen, you have to stop
eating fried foods, you have to eat chicken, fish and vegetables.
You tell the doctor, no, no, I can still do that. The reason I
have heart failure is I'm not drinking enough water. You go back
and don't listen, and you go back and get another open heart
surgery. At some point when stuff happens, the act to be able to
find out how to correct and get the results you want is something that
everybody needs to do. I think for those guys early on, they got
more and more, and started to see some of those things. I think
for Patric, I'm just using him as an example, I could go through
examples with every guy, once they started to buy into it, it got
better and better.”
“Chandler Parsons is another example of
that. He was like the same guy his freshman and sophomore
year. Thought he had everything figured out, and he didn't.
Until he hit rock bottom, he started to buy into what was going on, and
inevitably you saw him end up having a great senior year. Look at
what he's doing in the NBA right now. I always said as a visual
you've got to show guys things.”
“I think sometimes we talk as
coaches and words can go in one ear and out the other. They don't
understand. Sometimes you show things visually, and it helps.”
On where those expressions stem from:
“Because
I think that the same ingredients that go into winning in November are
the same ingredients that go into winning in March. The
ingredients that go into winning don't change. So there is a
process that you have to go through. Getting them to buy into the
process, it's a 40 minute process that you have to go through.
Even doubting it, it's the process of each possession. It's can
you battle and fight through human nature when things are not going
your way? A bad call, a bad play, a missed shot, a turnover, can
you get yourself to move to the next thing mentally without your mind
dragging you back into the past or worrying about too much into the
future? I just believe in those things.”
“I use those
things about staying in the moment of what's going on. There are
times when I can see those guys shift in and out of the moment on the
bench, by what they say. Let's close out the half after the four
minutes. Let's close out this half. No. It's not the
half. This next possession, it's not about the half. What
are we going to do this possession? And you start, and I'm trying
to get them to understand how much you have to mentally be focused on
each possession, and you can't be really good unless you have five guys
focused in the moment of what's going on in that possession. Then
you can get to a place where you start to deal with my job, my
responsibility, what am I supposed to do?”
“Again, the game of
basketball, there is a lot of reaction. People are moving,
cutting, sometimes you make mistakes, you don't do things the right
way. But if you do make a mistake, can you move past that
mistake? So I think they've learned through those things.
Probably early on in their careers I was talking over their head and
they didn't understand it. And that's probably my fault.
But you try to give them some things and through their experiences,
they have a better understanding sometimes of what you're talking
about.”
On what impresses him most about UCONN in general, and Shabazz Napier, in particular:
“Well,
he's done it a lot. Obviously, he played on a National
Championship team his freshman year. He is a great scorer.
He can do it by himself. He doesn't need necessarily a lot of
help or a lot of screening. He's been a big shot maker his whole
entire career. Boatright back there with him is another explosive
guard who can score. Giffey has shot the ball very well for
him. Daniels continues to improve and get better.”
“I
would probably say like ourselves, playing them back in December,
they're a much, much better team today than when we played them, and
hopefully we've improved as well. But Napier to me is one of
those guys that's been in college for four years, he has evolved into
an elite guard in this country, as good as anybody out there.
Certainly against us he made some really big shots coming down the
stretch. He made a three point shot we fouled him on. It
was a four point play, and then obviously, he made the game
winner. But he's a terrific player. He's had a great year.”
On how the development and presence of Kasey Hill alters the match-up in his eyes:
“Yeah,
I think Kasey can he definitely help us. It gives us more depth
in the back court. I would have liked to have played him more
against Dayton. He was in a little bit of foul trouble there in
the first half. I think Kasey in the tournament, and even going
back to the SEC has come on. He's played better. He's
improved. I've got confidence in him. He makes our team
faster when he's out there. I thought what he did in the UCLA
game really helped us. He manufactured a lot of easy baskets for
us by getting down the lane. So him being available to play I
think helps our team.”
On the familiarity of the Final Four teams and if Gators win, the quick turnaround to Monday:
“Yeah,
it definitely helps. It helps both teams. What I mean by
that is if you're playing against UCLA and we recruited Kyle Anderson,
I know Kyle, the size, the length, we've never played against a 6'9"
point guard before, so you're trying to explain to them how to guard a
guy or what you need to do against him that they've never seen
before. Our guys will have a familiarity with Napier, his
quickness, his speed. Same thing with Boatright, same thing with
Daniels. The whole roster, there will be a familiarity there
because they've been on the floor with those guys. Also the same
for them.”
“They've been on the floor with Patric Young and
Scottie and Dodo and those guys. So it gives you at least a
reference point of what you're dealing with there. I think that
that from a preparation standpoint for both teams, both teams kind of
know each other. We're not in the same league. We've played
each other once. It was a long time ago, early December, but the
game was played, and both teams were out there competing, and both
teams have an idea of size, length, speed, quickness.”
“A lot of
times in a tournament when you don't see it's like for us trying to
explain about Pierre from Dayton at 6'7" who is a small forward, how
physical he is, and how good he is around the basket, and he hurt us
doing that. We hadn't seen some of that stuff before.
That's what happens in a tournament sometimes. You don't see
things personnel wise, size, quickness, speed. It's a little bit
different when you haven't had a chance to prepare for it. Now
playing against UCONN, our guys have seen them before.”
On how he looks at the buzzer-beater finish against UCONN back in December:
“I
look at it a couple of ways. On that night they were the better
team. They beat us. They made the plays necessary down the
stretch to beat us. The play by Daniels, the ball going back out
to Napier was a great play, but you've got to give him credit that he
had the wherewithal just to keep the ball alive. I don't know if
he knew where he was tipping it to.”
“We, obviously, had really
good coverage on Napier on the last shot, and we also had three guys
kind of run in. You've got to give them credit that in the midst
of all of that chaos, they made the winning play that was necessary in
the game to win the game.”
“I always say inevitably when a game
is over with, I always believe in between the lines the best team wins,
and they were the best team that day.”
On if Florida defended his (Napier) first shot:
“Yes,
we did a great job on that. We got him to take a tough, off
balance shot. Like I said earlier, he does not need a lot of help
to get shots off. He's just a terrific offensive player. We
got him to take about as difficult of a shot as we could. That's
not to say he's incapable of making it. But when you look at it,
we made him take a tough shot. We didn't finish the possession
off, and to be honest with you, it was two or three possessions before
that where we did give up some offensive rebounds. Two of the
offensive possessions led to us fouling Napier on a three point play
that put them up one. We were up by three, fouled them, made the
free throw. He came down and scored. We were up by 1 at the
time or 2, I don't know what it was, and then they came down and tipped
the ball up and obviously beat us.”
On how much of a reference point the UCONN loss has been for them this year:
“I
think you always learn through wins and losses. I always say as a
coach the best way to learn is through winning. In that situation
a lot of times it's the second shot that beats you, not the first
one. When a shot goes up, the tendency is to want to go in there
and want to go rebound. We obviously ran in way too deep.
Actually three guys ran in below the free throw line, and the ball got
punched back out to Napier, and he was left with a wide open 15 foot
jumpshot, so hopefully that's something we've learned from.”
On DeAndre Daniels and the evaluation of his play:
“He's
been great. He's really improved and gotten better. He's a
versatile forward. He shoots threes. He's posting up.
He's long, he's athletic. He can put it on the floor. Kevin
does a lot of great stuff with him to put him in situations where he
can shoot the ball. He can put it on the floor. He can play
out of the post. But he's a guy, I think, has progressively
gotten better during the course of the season.”
On if he’s managing his fourth Final Four differently:
“I
don't know if there's anything we're doing differently to manage them
as much as they don't know what they're in store for. That's the
hardest part is they don't know. When you don't know, I've got to
try to give them what's going to happen, the excitement, the
enthusiasm, the length of time that they have to deal with the media,
the length of time of open practices and availability.”
“Like I
said, it's no different from the Super Bowl. There is going to be
a lot of different things, and you try to prepare them as best they can
so that they understand that they cannot get emotionally drained with
dealing with all that we have to deal with. We've got to still
stay and keep our focus on playing, and hopefully through some of my
past experiences there I can take them and relay them to them and try
to get them to a place where they get bought in and listen and use some
of the experiences I've had to help them.”
On Kasey Hill’s turf toe and his ability to tough it out:
“Well,
I know turf toe is painful, but come on, we're playing in the Final
Four. He'll be fine. He's a great kid. Hopefully his
toe will be okay and he'll be able to play. But I do appreciate
him working through that. He doesn't appear to be in a lot of
pain when he's running around out there. He's moving pretty well.”
On the discipline of his team with fouls in the NCAA Tournament:
“I
think sometimes the fouling does have to do with the team and how they
play. For Dayton, they were really a four around one kind of
team. Lot of it was perimeter shooting for them. I think
that really helped them advance in the tournament. They got a lot
of transition points and they made a lot of threes, and they improved
defensively from where they were earlier in the year to where they are
now.”
“But with the way they ran their offense, we were not
having to deal with a lot of post up situations. Sometimes you
deal with a lot of post up situations and the ball is at the rim and
there is a lot of offensive rebounding and you're more inclined to
foul. So we did a pretty good job of keeping our discipline and
not fouling in those situations.”
On the physicality of his
front line and if it plays a role in Saturday’s
game:
“I
think it's who we are. But you have to give UCONN credit too
now. UCONN played against a very physical Michigan State
team. Michigan State is a very physical team up front with Payne
and the rest of their guys. They jam it inside. So I think
we're a physical team, but clearly UCONN is a physical team as well
when you watch that game.”
On Michael Frazier doing other things to affect the game in this tournament:
“Yeah,
I think what happens sometimes is we go through a scouting
report. There are things that we're going to try to take away
from a team. We have nothing to do with what a team tries to take
away from us. I said this before, Albany plays a triangle and two
on he and Scottie best thing they can do is get out of the way and
allow some other guys opportunities to do some things.”
“I
thought coming back in the second game against Pittsburgh he got off
nine three point shots, and I thought they were all pretty good looks,
and he was 2 for 9. There was a game where he got good
looks. I thought in the UCLA game he shot the ball very
well. Dayton did a good job on him but he did make a couple
threes. He missed one late that I thought he had a really good
look on.”
“Michael has to just keep working in transition when
the floor gets broken of getting himself open. But we've never
been a team, nor do I believe that when somebody's trying to take a guy
out of the game, that the only way we can win is by him scoring.
Now all of our focus is trying to get him shots. We still have
Patric Young. We have Prather, we have Wilbekin. We have
Dodo coming off the bench. We have Kasey Hill. There are
enough guys out there that we need to take advantage of whatever the
defense is there.”
“Would I like Michael Frazier to knock down
five, six, seven threes a game? That would be great for us.
That would be great. But sometimes the defense has something to
do with that. If they are taking him away, the maturity thing we
need to understand what else is open. Sometimes that is the
greatest sign of respect for a player is when they try to take you out
of the game. Some teams tried to do that to Michael, but we've
still been able to move on and advance by doing different things.”
“I
don't think he responded really well after the Albany game. I
don't think he did at all. I think his maturity level got
better. Sometimes you sit there and say get Frazier going, get
Frazier going, but he's taken by far more threes than anybody.
I've told Michael, I think in the Albany game, he was frustrated.
I'm not really open. Well, they've got a guy guarding you one on
one. The other three guys are in the zone. But he didn't
move past that because then he got nine shots against Pittsburgh that
were wide open, and he only made two of them. I think some of it
had to do with what he was living in on Thursday against Albany.
Instead of being able to move on to the next thing, he was still in
that, and that is an area for a young player he needs to get
better. He has gotten better from where he was a year or two ago,
but he can still get better in that area.”
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