The hair is no longer jet black but the boyish face remains. Billy Donovan, a basketball lifer at 60, will receive the ultimate honor for his coaching acumen when he’s inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame on Sept. 6.
Donovan got a standing ovation from a sellout crowd at The Swamp when he was honored on the field after the first quarter of Florida football‘s 55-0 win over Long Island on Saturday, Aug. 30. He was two months shy of his 31st birthday when he was hired in April of 1996 to replace Lon Kruger as Florida basketball coach. In the 19 years that followed (1996-2015), Donovan led the Florida Gators to their first two national titles in school history (2006, 2007), four Final Fours (2000, 2006, 2007, 2014) and six SEC titles (2000, 2001, 2007, 2011, 2013, and 2014). His 467 wins at UF rank second all-time in SEC history, behind only Kentucky’s Adolph Rupp.
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Before becoming a coach, Donovan first hit the national college basketball stage as “Billy The Kid” — a star guard under the Rick Pitino-led Providence team that reached the Final Four in 1987. Then, after a brief NBA playing career, Donovan opted to stay in the game coaching, first as a grad assistant at Kentucky under Pitino, then as a head coach at Marshall (1994-96) before arriving at UF.
“I never got into the game of basketball thinking or dreaming something like this would happen,” Donovan said. “I got into the game playing because I loved playing. And when you can’t play anymore and you start to go into the real world and take job opportunities you realize, like, I’m not cut out for this at all. I stayed involved in the game, I thought through my own personal experience I could somehow, some way give back to the game and to younger players.”
Donovan has just five to seven minutes to give his Hall of Fame speech, which he says will be a challenge to acknowledge those who have contributed to his success. That includes former Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley, who took a chance in hiring the 30-year-old Donovan back in 1996.
“There’s a lot for me, going back to my family, my parents, my kids, my wife, and then you think about the assistant coaches, all that I worked with over the years,” Donovan said. “You think about the players in college and the NBA.”
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How Billy Donovan made Florida basketball nationally relevant
Before Donovan arrived, Florida made a surprise run to the Final Four under Kruger in 1994. But overall, basketball at Florida failed to generate sustained success. The Gators had only been to the NCAA Tournament five times in school history when Donovan was hired in 1996. They went 14 times in 19 seasons under Donovan.
The program turned when Donovan convinced some of the top recruits in the state and the country − Mike Miller, Udonis Haslem, Teddy Dupay, Brett Nelson and Matt Bonner − to take a chance on UF and his guidance.
“When I look at what happened here at Florida, I didn’t grab a rebound or make an assist or make a free throw,” Donovan said. “There was a lot of faith and belief quite honestly, and the faith and belief was in something there was no evidence of. There was no evidence for Mike Miller to come here, Haslem to come here, Teddy Dupay. Even Brett Nelson, Matt Bonner, those guys.
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“There was not a lot of heavy evidence for guys to come here so I’m grateful for the faith and belief they had in the program and our staff and in myself.”
After the Miller and Haslem-led Gators reached the national title game in 2000 before falling to Michigan State, Florida had five straight years of first-weekend exits in the NCAA Tournament before a group led by 2004 recruits Al Horford, Corey Brewer, Taurean Green and Joakim Noah made history, guiding UF to its first two national titles in 2006 and 2007. The “oh-fours” as they were known had a profound bond off the court that translated on the court.
“To me it’s always funny when teams win really, really big, all the players say the same thing, ‘best group of guys we ever played with, these guys are so unselfish, these guys are my brothers’ and I think it’s legitimately true,” Donovan said. “I think I would say the same thing about those ‘06 and ‘07 teams, when those teams that are sitting there and holding trophies and cutting down nets and they are saying that stuff it’s genuine and real. And you can say it but you really have to live it.”
What Billy Donovan misses about college basketball
Donovan is entering his 10th year as an NBA coach with the first five coming with the Oklahoma City Thunder before moving on to his current job as head coach with the Chicago Bulls.
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It was fitting that Donovan’s induction was announced at the 2025 Final Four in San Antonio, as UF’s former national championship coach got to see current coach Todd Golden lead the Gators to a win over Auburn in the Final Four. Two days later, Florida knocked off Houston to claim its third national title in program history. In both games, UF rallied from double digit deficits.
“When you do that on a continual basis and have a consistency in doing that, there’s got to be a deep rooted connection inside that group,” Donovan said.
Donovan has been rumored to return to the college bench several times over the last decade, but has remained in the NBA. Asked what he misses about the college game, Donovan replied: “The thing I miss the most is the practices. We just don’t get a chance, outside of training camp, to practice as much. Obviously you are dealing with a totally different player in terms of the level of experience these guys have so a lot of it is more walking through stuff, film sessions.”
Kevin Brockway is The Gainesville Sun’s Florida beat writer. Contact him at kbrockway@gannett.com. Follow him on X @KevinBrockwayG1. Read his coverage of the Gators’ national championship basketball season in “CHOMP-IONS!” — a hardcover coffee-table collector’s book from The Sun. Details at Florida.ChampsBook.com
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This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: Newly-minted Hall of Famer Billy Donovan reflects on 19 years coaching Florida basketball
