Billy Donovan Work Quotations

Chris has seen himself improve and get better. And I think that is a tribute to him really making some great strides as a person in terms of his work ethic, in terms of competing, in terms of understanding what we want as coaches.

I was concerned about trying to double him. I wanted him to score and to take those other guys out of the game the best we could. It worked out for us.

I think our guys took great pride in facing a tougher road to get to this point than other teams. I think our team got better. They were a very, very focused group that worked hard. They peaked and probably played well because of some setbacks in February that helped us grow.

We were able to work inside out. We had a little better balance in the second half and we still continued to defend the three. That was a big concern for myself going into this game.

If you have a guy that's talented but totally into himself, who never had to be unselfish a day in his life, it's really hard to change that mentality. Now we've got good kids who have been unselfish and have worked hard and gotten better.

He was a great guy. It was such a tragedy, what happened. He touched a lot of lives. I know with St. Francis, he and (athletic director) Randy Maris had a lot of plans, he wanted to give Bud the chance to build a basketball program and unfortunately it didn't work out. At least his family, his kids, will have something they can hold to and remember him by.

Our guys have really tried to work hard at it.

In recruiting, I don't ever feel like all of a sudden guys are now jumping to come to Florida. You still have to work hard and do a good job of evaluating and making sure you get guys who you feel would be best fit for the program and fit in well with teammates.

That's a really, really interesting question because I've always been a big, big believer that things that have happened in the past, negatively or positively, don't affect your future. I believe I have to work harder now as a head coach, and what I mean by that is we've got to try to continue to recruit good, quality kids.

There's been a lot of hard work and sweat that's gone into it. It's a huge milestone. It's a huge thing for our state, for our fans.

It's been a lot of work here. But it's been rewarding.

We're 16-0 right now, but we could very easily be 11-5. It's that fragile. We have to work for everything we get. We had to work against Auburn all the way to the end. We had to work all the way until the end against Mississippi State.

The way our schedule works out is probably a little more of a disadvantage for our team because we are playing four of the last six games on the road. That is challenging. The only thing I am worried about right now is Vanderbilt. To me, that is the only game we have, and it's the only thing we need to worry about.