Smiles have been a rarity for University of Florida basketball coach, Billy Donovan, this year as injuries and suspensions to key players have given the Gators barely any opportunity of sneaking into this year’s March Madness tournament. But on Saturday, the return of junior forward and 2014 SEC Sixth Man of the Year, Dorian Finney-Smith, sparked the Gators to a victory over the Tennessee Volunteers. Finney-Smith scored 20 points and grabbed 10 rebounds as the Gators won 66-49. The win finally gave Donovan something to smile about as it meant he had become the second-youngest college men’s basketball coach to reach 500 career wins, doing it at the age of 49. The only coach that reached that milestone at a younger age was Bob Knight.
Donovan’s head coaching career started in 1994 at Marshall University, after spending five years at the University of Kentucky assisting his former coach, Rick Pitino. Donovan was only 28 when he accepted the job at Marshall, making him the youngest head coach amongst all Division 1 NCAA teams at that time. The year before Marshall hired him, the Thundering Herd went 9-18. In his first year there, his impact was felt immediately as the team finished the season 18-9 and Donovan won Southern Conference Coach of the Year honors. The following year, Marshall would go on to win 17 games and lose 11. At this point, Donovan had won 35 games in just two seasons at a school that had only won 32 games over the three seasons prior to his arrival.
The next year, Donovan would receive and accept a job offer to become the head coach at the University of Florida. At the time, Florida was known as being one of the most prestigious football schools in the country. They had just won 3 straight SEC Championships and the 1996 National Championship under head coach Steve Spurrier. The basketball team had very little success before Donovan arrived, as they had only made the NCAA Tournament five times, reached the Final Four once, and had never won the SEC tournament.
Donovan’s first two years at Florida were not as successful as they had hoped. They failed to win more than half of their games in either of those seasons and combined to go 27-33. In the 1998-99 season, Donovan finally had his first 20-plus win season, as the Gators won 22 games, lost nine, and made the Tournament. This would start a run of nine consecutive tournament-worthy seasons for the Gators, a run that was almost double the amount of tournament bids that the University had before Donovan became the coach. In his fourth year at Florida, Donovan led the Gators to a Final Four victory over the University of North Carolina, his 113th career win, before losing the championship game to Tom Izzo and the Spartans of Michigan State. For the next five years, the Gators would receive tournament bids, but failed to even reach the Sweet Sixteen in any of those. During that five year span, the Gators won 115 games to bring Donovan’s career win total to 228.
In the 2005-06 season, the Gators had a starting lineup that included four sophomores (Joakim Noah, Al Horford, Corey Brewer, and Taurean Green) and a junior (Lee Humphrey); five players that had played small roles in Florida’s previous season. This starting five would write their names in Florida’s history books in 2005-06 as they won a school record 17 consecutive games and would lead the Gators to their first ever NCAA Championship. Billy Donovan became the fourth coach in college basketball history to both play in a Final Four game and win a NCAA championship as a coach. The four Sophomores were all expected to enter the NBA draft, as it was widely believed that if one of them left college early, they would all leave. But surprisingly, they all decided to return to Florida and attempt to make even more history at Florida.
Never had a team won back-to-back championships with the same starting five, but the Gators looked to change that in 2006-07. For the second straight season, the Gators won 17 straight games and entered the NCAA Tournament as a one-seed and a favorite to win the tournament. They proved to be worthy of being the favorite as they beat Ohio State University, led by Greg Oden, in the Championship game. The starting five showed that they were truly historic and all played major roles in Florida’s back-to-back championships. Each of them either won a SEC tournament MVP or a NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player Award, besides Lee Humphrey, who entered the NCAA history books by becoming the most successful three-point shooter in tournament history; making 55 three-pointers in his tournament career, a record that has not been broken since. Together, this group went 68-11 in their two seasons as starters, leaving coach Donovan just four wins shy of 300 for his career.
This group was a testament to what Billy Donovan is all about. During a time when star players were staying in college for only their freshman year before heading to the pros, Donovan was able to successfully develop a group of players that was very raw talent-wise into one of the all-time great college basketball lineups. After they won the 2007 championship, Noah, Horford, Brewer, and Green all decided, as a group, to forego their senior seasons and become eligible for the NBA draft.
With all five starters leaving the program, the following season was clearly going to begin a rebuilding process. The Gators missed out on the tournament for the first time since Donovan’s second season at Florida. They would miss it again the following season. In 2010, they were finally back in the tournament, only to lose their first-round matchup. Donovan had 366 wins after 2010.
The next season, the 2011 Gators made it to the Elite Eight, led by SEC Player of the Year, Chandler Parsons. They made their way to the Elite Eight in the 2012 Tournament behind the play of freshman guard Bradley Beal. For a third straight year, the Gators lost in the Elite Eight, this time behind a group of seniors that included Erik Murphy, Kenny Boynton, and Mike Rosario. Despite failing to make it to the Final Four in all three of these tournament runs, the Gators won 84 games during those three seasons, bringing Donovan to 450 career wins.
The following season would be another historic one for Billy and the Gators. This time they were led by a group of four seniors (Scottie Wilbekin, Casey Prather, Patric Young, and Will Yeguete) that would win a school record 30 games in a row. They went undefeated in SEC play, including the entire SEC tournament. They finally made it past the Elite Eight, but failed to defeat the University of Connecticut Huskies in the Final Four. What made this group special is that they didn’t have any true elite talents. They were a group of players destined to play overseas once their college careers were over. With Donovan’s coaching, this group was able to have a historic season and find ways to make up for their lack of athleticism and NBA-worthy skills by out-hustling and outsmarting their opponents. The Gators went 36-3, the best record in Florida history, bringing Donovan to 486 wins.
What makes Billy Donovan a special coach is how he doesn’t do things like other successful coaches during this time. Rarely does he recruit players that immediately turn into college phenoms, but instead he finds guys that he can develop in his system, so that by the time they are juniors and seniors, they will have experience with the program and can rely on their abilities to outsmart the other teams.
This year has been frustrating for Donovan and the Gators, even though expectations weren’t extremely high after losing four starters the previous season. Within a couple weeks, the Gators went from ranked to unranked and have yet to return to being ranked. It is highly unlikely the team will make the NCAA tournament, as they currently reside at a 14-15 record, which is on pace to be the Gators’ first record under .500 since Donovan’s second season in Florida. But based on Donovan’s history, this will only be a minor bump in the road and Florida will return to greatness sooner rather than later.
Congrats on the 500th win Billy, This writer is sure that there are many more to come!