So Long Billy D & Congratulations!
Five years, ten years, twenty years from now, I will be able to look back at my time at UF and say, “I was there when we won 3 titles in 2 years.”
Without Billy Donovan, you can subtract two-thirds of that equation. Billy Donovan didn’t just build Gator basketball; he Was Gator basketball. Our program was languishing in the nether realms before he lifted it into the stratosphere.
Back-to-back titles. What a joke. In this day and age, of the teenage mutant multi-million dollar shoe contract, and the one-and-done college basketball superstar, Billy Donovan managed to find players who not only had talent and fit his system, but that liked school and each other well enough to come back AFTER ascending the top of the college basketball mountain.
That’s pretty special. No, that’s unbelievable. It’s unfathomable, it’s outstanding, it’s majestic, it’s terrific, it’s every superlative ever written and then some. And that’s why he deserves to be sent off – not as some money-grubbing jerk selling out to the pros – but as a conquering hero.
Honestly – what does Donovan have left to prove at the collegiate level? What he just did might never be accomplished again. Billy is the type of person who craves new challenges. He wants to do things that people say can’t be done. Why should he have to stick around Gainesville and live in his own shadow? Because other people want him to become the UF version of Coach K? Because UF’s first coaching legend Steve Spurrier and Donovan’s own mentor Rick Pitino got roughed up in the pros?
“Every experience means something, but I just don’t believe the idea that Rick Pitino or Steve Spurrier can’t be successful at the professional level,” Donovan said. “I think it has more to do with the kind of teams they have taken over. Did guys like Lon Kruger and Leonard Hamilton really have a chance to win? Were those situations where they really had a chance? Could they really win there?
“Remember that coach Pitino was very successful with the Knicks before he went to Kentucky. Rick Pitino and Steve Spurrier can coach at any level. I really believe that.”
I too believe that Pitino and Spurrier can be successful in the pros. But Billy isn’t Pitino or Spurrier. He’s already proven that he’s smarter than both of them. When the Memphis Grizzlies offered Donovan $5 mil a year, he didn’t just jump at the first offer thrown his way. He assessed the situation, realized the Grizzlies are going nowhere in the West, and turned down the job.
The Orlando Magic? That’s a different story. They have perhaps the finest young center in the NBA, Dwight Howard, and in the East, that’s enough of a starting place for Donovan to begin making his mark.
As for the Gators? We’ll be fine. Next year’s team looks like they can fly under the radar a-la two years ago, with Walter Hodge playing the role of Taurean Green, and Mareese Speights filling in as the center-who-takes-a-huge-step-up-in-year-2, along with a nice recruiting class featuring Nick Calathes and Jai Lucas, who will fill out the Gator guard rotation.
No doubt, the next coach of the Gators will have huge shoes to fill, but he will take over one of the best programs in the country. Donovan clearly didn’t leave the cupboard bare, and Jeremy Foley should be able to cherry-pick from the best young coaches in the country.
Not that he has to look far. Former UF assistant coach Anthony Grant just led VCU to the NCAA tournament, and current UF assistant Larry Shyatt is the man who toughened up the formerly soft Gator defense. Either one would be a fabulous choice.
But no matter what happens from here, Gators fans should be nothing but grateful. We got to witness a team that, for my money, should go down as the greatest in college basketball history. And for that, my hat goes off to the man with the plan, the architect of it all, the greatest coach in college basketball: Billy Donovan.
Quotes pulled from http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/columns/story?columnist=schlabach_mark&id=2888888