Billy Donovan Shot Quotations

For us, it was a game we had to grind it out. It wasn't always our style of play. ... Tonight was about consecutive stops and defending the 3-point line. They shot 19 percent from the 3-point line and 39 percent from the field. That was the difference.

I thought we played well on the defensive end to only be down at 11 at the half with the way we shot the ball. As well as we played defensively in the first half, we didn't do the things we needed to on the boards and on defense in the second half.

I thought we left a lot of points on the board in the first half, because we had 11 turnovers and we were shooting 52 or 53 percent from the field. Second half we only turned it over three times and we shot 52 percent from the field and that's why we had a 52-point half.

I thought the key to the game was the three-point line. They were shooting 32 percent for the year but shot 42 percent in the tournament. We knew the three-point line would be critical.

I think hitting his first shot helped him. It was great to see Lee mix up his game. Lee took a step in that he found other ways to help our team win when he wasn't hitting his 3-pointers.

We're not at all telling our guys when the shot is up, you need to block shots. We're more concerned about challenging shots and then being able to block out and rebound to start the break. That's where our focus has been.

We shot ourselves in the foot a lot of times in the second half. . . . I thought both teams had fatigue settle in as the game went on.

We shot ourselves in the foot a lot of times in the second half. In the second half, the first (six) possessions, we turned it over four times.

We thought the three-point line would be critical at both ends. It's the great equalizer in college basketball and we held them without one for (nearly) 35 minutes. And I thought Lee Humphrey shot the ball very well.

The reason he shot it so far to the left was he never really got his left arm up and he shot it across his body. This is going to be another one to two weeks before he's back to probably feeling healthy. I would think that he would be available against South Carolina. How many minutes? What type of role? Will he be able to get back to his shooting form? I'm hopeful, but I'm not counting on that.

I've often said the greatest equalizer in college basketball is the 3-point line. They outscored us by 12 from the 3-point line. Our inability to limit them to one shot and inability to guard the 3-point line cost us. Anytime a team can come into your building and shoot 53 percent from the field and 47 percent from the 3-point line, you have to have a very, very good night on offense.

Sometimes, in the NCAA Tournament, the best team doesn't always win. Sometimes it's the hottest team or the luck of the bounce or a shot going in or something happens. Why not give every kid an opportunity to create some type of magic for themselves?

It's a hard play. He had two people with him and he was able to get in the lane and see the basket. He probably thought he had a good shot at it.

The big focus for us was the three-point line. I think we were able to hold them without a three-point shot for the first 35 minutes. We shot 34 percent in the first half, but the fact that we shot 40 percent from three-point line in the first half gave us a five-point lead.

It was a great college basketball game with both teams going back and forth and they were able to take the lead on a play. We got Lee a pretty good shot and if he makes it, we're up by one. It was a little bit short. I thought it had a great chance to go in.

For our basketball team, it was a tale of two halves. In the first half, our guys were very, very impatient on offense. We didn't have the ball movement and the player movement we needed to have. We had good ball movement and player movement and we shot 57 percent in the second half. If we would have played similar to that and rebounded like we did in the first half, it would have been a different game. We couldn't put it all together.