Billy Donovan is staying at UF!
 

:D

I'm glad. :cool:

You had to bring it up, didnt you!:mad: Flags are flying at half mast and people are devasted around here. Even worse, I feel bad for the guy that we hire b/c people are already so disappointed. Foley threw the house at him and he stayed. Good for you all, bad for us. It's going to be a long 3-5 years before it's turned around now.

I was almost positive he was going to Kentucky...

Sorry about your luck, but happy about ours! Haha :p

Here's how positive I was. An athletic director, not UK's, said this morning that Donovan was going into the meeting to tell Foley he was leaving for UK and the only way he wasnt coming was if Foley was able to convince him to stay. It stings right now, but I wonder how long he wouldve stayed at UK/will stay at Florida with the yearly onslaught of NBA teams throwing loads of money at him. That'll be your next competition for keeping Billy D. I really feel Tubby leaving so abrubtly and then Florida winning the tournament gave Foley plenty of time to get his resources and pitch together.

Billy staying was the best and right thing to do! I don't know what he has left on that team, but as this season proves freshman can and do have Big impact on team talent. Good luck to BD..and to those fine juniors who're leaving!

Florida's four juniors to enter NBA draft

Uh-oh- now they have to take a pay cut to leave the Gators and play in the league!;)

YOU are such a CYNIC!:D

Smart man, why deal with the insane, unrealistic Kentucky fans. I don't blame him one bit, the Kentucky job is not what it once was and their fans are rediculous. Maybe they will get some perspective, but I doubt it, they aren't too bright.

The best is the pre-game show for the UK games, they should put the callers on a CD and sell it as a comedy bit. Usually goes something like this, "Thanks Oscar, this is Billy Bob from Raccoon Holler, Tubby don't know how to coach, we need to run him out of here, Cats by 20 tonight" or the best one of all time is when one of the genuises stated that if they made more 3 point shots, they would score more points. I can't make this stuff up.

I told y'all so...

An about "Florida's four juniors to enter NBA draft"...

At least they're juniors there. At Duke, UNC, and a few other select schools (where Oden plays lol), it's where freshmen enter the NBA draft.

I happen to be a Kentucky fan and every fan base has nuts. We have more fans than most schools therefore we have more insane fans as well as more sane fans. It's simple math. By the way, I'm not one to give people suggestions unless they ask, but I'll make an exception for you.

#1-Before you say our fans "aren't too bright" you should be aware that rediculous isn't a word, however ridiculous is.

#2-When you refer to our fans as "genuises" in a sarcastic way you should also be aware that "genuises" isn't a word, however geniuses is.

Hope this clears things up a bit and allows you to look much less "rediculous" in the future.

As for Cajun and the other Gator fans on here congratulations on keeping your man. You guys deserve to keep him and I wish Florida and Billy the best. Looks like Kentucky may have a Billy of our own in town tomorrow.

Thanks for the clarification...

Mispelled words and bad grammer(or is it grammar) is a sure sign of a dumb person. and the person pointing it out must be a genius(thanks)...

That was a great source you had, 100% huh.


Face it, UK scared off a good coach and because of their insane fans with their feeling of self entitlement, they scared off Donovan. Now you are going to take Gillespie, he didn't recruit AC, he may be a good coach and things could turn out for UK, but it's a risk. And if UK is down to taking risks, it shows how low that program has dropped.

How was Donovan "scared off"?

Didnt UK take a risk when they hired a young new yorker, i think his name was Rick Pitino. How'd that turn out? We didnt scare off Donovan, he didnt want leave a good thing that he created at Florida. More power to him. Just remember all of us UK fans that "arent too bright" include the owners of Claiborne Farm, Lane's End, Three Chimneys, etc.....maybe you should look in to taking over the horse industry.

Thank you for the kind words. Good luck with your new coach. :)

Billy Donovan will be the next coach of the Miami Heat, book it he is out of fla by the end of June.

Billy Donavan wanted too much period. He wanted all of his personnel including the strength coach. They just hired their strength coach within the past month. No way Barnes was goint to agree to it. Barnes also wanted an answer before Monday. Definitely no agreement was going to be made, but I believe Barnes got who he wanted anyways.

When Gillespe was working for Bill Self in Tulsa, he was the top recruiter on the staff. He also has a GREAT eye for talent. He was the guy that convinced Self to give Kevin Johnson who was all WAC for 2 years. Tulsa was the only one who recruited him. He also found a point gaurd (whose name I am blanking on) who turned out to be all WAC and Tulsa was the only school who recruited him. He can coach. Anyone that can win at Texas A and M, can win anywhere.

This is all speculation and this is all from the media, but here's how I believe it went down:

Local sports talk radio guy is a UK Grad and was the beat writer for UK for the Cincinnati Post, he's good friends with Mick Cronin(he didn't mention his source, but I would say this is straight from Cronin) and Cronin was Pitino's assistant at Louisville. He was told that Pitino did get involved in this with Donovan and basically told Donovan: "Look what those fans did to me after I left, look what they did to Tubby, you want them to do that to you" and while it wasn't the only reason he didn't take the job, the actions of the fans weighed heavily on it.

I don't know if I would have call it as big as risk as taking Gillespie, Pitino had a decent resume. Besides, UK was on probation, so they were a little desperate.

Heard on the radio today from a not too bright UK fan, it doesn't matter who coaches Kentucky, because we are Kentucky, well I guess he has a short memory, because Tubby didn't live up to his expectations.

According to...
 

my wife's 3rd cousin's best friend, she heard from her brother's sister in law's uncle whose son happens to be friends with the stepbrother of the waterboy for Eastside High School Basketball team that he overheard his sister's father(not his father) say that his Aunt's gynecologist bestest friend in the whole wide world heard from the bartender at the Ale House that...

BILLY WAS GOING NOWHERE!!!

Dude, Pitino did the one thing that you do not do. He broke the hearts of many to bolt for the NBA in the middle of a historic run. Then, had the nuts to come back and coach the most hated rival of the blue. I would not be a bit suprised that he told Billy D that. Pitino is a used car salesmen that always down plays everything to make himself look like a genius. He probably also told him that it's not that bad coaching at a football school :D

My take is that I would have loved to have gotton Donovan to KY, but he really did have no earthly reason to do so. Now Billy Gillespie looks like a good hire. I think he will be motivated and the change will be refreshing.

On the subject of the UK fans, we are very passionate about our team, no doubt. But, go to Rupp Arena for a game and you will never, ever hear a boo that is directed at the team or coach. We stand behind our team no matter what. Even this season after losing 3 in a row and sleepwalking thru the game against LSU, the team did not get booed.

Anyway, the future looks good for the Big Blue and I'm happy with the Billy we got!:cool:

Right on this is a great hire for UK, This guy turned around a below average
A&M teams into a powerhouse in the Big 12. As for the fans when I lived
in Lexington in themid 90's for a couple of years went to quite a few games at
Rupp and I couldn't believe how supportive the fans were towards their team
when they were not playing well.

Gillespie is an interesting hire. I think it could work, but I'm not quite convinced. The first few years he will have to make a big impact. It will help if they can capitalize on a somewhat weaker Florida team (Florida will still be good eventhough they lost everyone), and get in a big recruiting class going into 2 seasons from now.

The guy that I think has been flying under the radar all along, and I think could end up in Arkansas, is Lon Kruger (the UNLV coach). I think he could've been very good for Kentucky too. He almost seems to have a Parcells type of M.O. to him. At every COLLEGE program he's coached at, he's won. But more than that, he's resurrected each program he's coached.

What was Florida before him? Billy Donovan has taken Florida to new heights, but Lon Krueger put the program on the map in the early-mid 90s. Then when Illinois went in the dumps in the mid 90s (when Lew Henson retired... temporarily), he made them a powerhouse. He's the one who's started this 10-year run that Illinois has been on. He laid the ground floor for that. It wasn't Bill Self, it wasn't Bruce Weber, it was Lon Kruger.

Then Krueger made the mistake that Pitino, Tarkanian, Mike Montgomery, Tim Floyd, etc etc etc have made: They took the big NBA $$$ and failed. right when Illinois was about to become a big-time national powerhouse, he left to coach the Atlanta Hawks... and failed just like every other Hawks coach in the last 10-15 years.

But then he turned up at UNLV, and in 2 seasons has made them a formidable team again. Vegas isn't such a bad place to be, and he could make UNLV into a Mountain West powerhouse. Just like Rick Majerus and Utah in the late 90s. BUT THIS IS WHERE THE PARCELL'S COMPARISON COMES INTO PLAY: He resurrects down programs, and then doesn't stick around for the long-term success.

If UK would've given him a chance, I think he might've finally found his permanent home. I think Arkansas would be smart to give him a look. They have a core group coming back, and Krueger can build that team for the future as well.