12/9: Donovan provides his post-game opinions

The No. 24 (for now) Florida Gators (7-2) won their second-straight game by double digits on Thursday, defeating the Kent State Golden Flashes (7-3) 65-52 at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center in Gainesville, FL. Head coach Billy Donovan spoke to the media after the game and had plenty to say about his team’s performance.

FLORIDA IS ABOUT DEFENSE IN 2010-11

With the Gators struggling mightily on offense, Donovan has made it a point to tell the team that playing great defense gives Florida the best chance of being successful for the remainder of this year through the (potential) postseason.

“The biggest thing everybody wants to talk about is our shooting. That’s been up-and-down and certainly we have not shot the ball great,” he said after the game. “The thing that’s gotten probably lost the last three or four games is how much these guys have improved defensively. […] It’s been four-straight games now that we’ve kept people below 40 percent for the game.”

He continued, “We’re going to have to be a defensive team because we are going to have nights where we score and then we’re going to have some nights where we struggle. We got to find ways to get stops; that has to be something we hang our hat on.”

Donovan shares his thoughts on the offense and two players…after the break!

HE’S TELLIN’ YA’LL – IT’S SABBOTAGE!

Though Donovan certainly faults the players for their poor shooting, he also puts the onus on the coaching staff for some of the team’s struggles. UF is passing better and playing more selfless than they have recently, but the players are failing to capitalize on great opportunities.

“We as coaches have got to do a better job breaking down offensively what [the players] should be looking for in certain situations because we’re missing [open shots] in these situations,” Donovan said. “There’s things we’re just missing. But we’re running through our offense now a lot better. The next step is to figure out what we’re looking for and what we’re trying to take advantage of.”

He added that Florida puts itself in the position to make a ton of other plays but ends up shooting itself in the foot more often than not.

“There’s way too many of those plays where we sabotage our own fruit, so to speak, for the labor that we’ve put in. We just kind of give it away,” he said. “There’s going to be games where you don’t have a cushion of 12-14-16-18 points to play with. It’s those plays, right now to me as a coach, that are the most worrisome. The most concerning [thing] for me as a coach is those self-induced, momentum-changing plays that we make. And we’re an older team, so that’s really concerning.”

QUOTES

On distractions facing the team: “We have a lot of distractions. What I mean by that is… When you’re doing with some of the preseason hype we’re dealing with, you’re dealing with people telling them what they should be doing – what they need to do. You got three seniors that are dealing with the next phase of their life in four months. There’s way, way more distractions. Last year we were dealing with, ‘Can we just get back to the tournament.’ It was a pretty clear thing. […] The really good players figure it out. They figure out how to deal with it.”

On how senior forward Chandler Parsons can improve: “We need Chandler to make everyone else around him better. The minute Chandler starts thinking about shooting and scoring and focusing on that, I think you loose all the other things that he does well. […] He needs to be a complete player instead of just being a scorer for us.”

On the play of freshman point guard Scottie Wilbekin: “He played tonight a lot because he was really good, [did] all the little things. He was tough, he was physical, he defended. He did a nice job running our team. […] There was several times on the defensive end of the floor that something bad was going to happen for our team, and he rotated or stepped up or guarded a guy or cut a guy off. He made a lot of really good plays that broke some momentum for them.”