Florida can afford to pay big if it’s warranted, and to get the best candidates available – say, Dayton’s Archie Miller — it will be warranted.
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Because Billy Donovan’s two decades on the job showed everyone that long-term basketball success at Florida is possible. But it’s not inevitable.
Even with Donovan’s skill and Q rating, Florida could not avoid a plunge to a sub-.500 record in the 2014-15 season. The Gators finished 16-17 and did not play in the postseason for the first time since 1997, his first year in Gainesville. Florida missed the NCAAs three times in the past decade. This did not happen at Kansas, Louisville, Michigan State or even Kentucky, which is on its third coach in that period.
Whichever coaches are pursued to replace Donovan now that he’s gone to the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder will be wary of these facts.
They’ll also realize the momentum the big football schools enjoyed for a time as the result of the money they were making — and most others were not – has diminished as the new TV deals have enabled those less accomplished in football to be financially competitive, as well.
There was a period about a decade ago when the money to be made by the most successful football schools enabled them to fund significant facilities improvements, hire and retain successful coaches and, as a result, attract a significant portion of the most attractive recruits.
That began to change when John Calipari arrived at Kentucky and escalated the competition for elite recruits, and it was exacerbated when the Pac-12, Big 12 and ACC all saw increases in their television rights deals.
Consider that in the five seasons before Calipari made his move to UK, 61 of the top-25 recruits who chose to attend college signed at what would be considered basketball-first schools, with 40 attending football-first schools.
In Calipari’s first five seasons at UK, the numbers were much different: 84 top-25 recruits chose basketball-first colleges, and 39 chose football-first colleges.
With so many of those players wishing to play in college for a short time, it seems remaining in the spotlight at a program such as Duke, Kansas, Kentucky or Arizona has gained even greater appeal.
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According to ESPN’s Ian O’Connor, Donovan told a friend he’d consulted about the move to OKC that battling with Kentucky in recruiting was wearing on him (even though the Gators won the league two of the past three years).
Donovan has not been completely outgunned in recent recruiting, at least on paper. Point guard Kasey Hill and power forward Chris Walker were both top-15 prospects in the class of 2013, but Walker did nothing to dispel the reputation that many Florida high school products are ill-prepared for the college game. In his first full season with the Gators, he averaged only 4.7 points, then declared for the draft. That flaw with the Florida in-state talent base is not an issue for the coach at, say, Texas, Ohio State or Indiana.
Donovan’s 2015 class includes respected guard KeVaughn Allen, whom the Gators convinced to leave Arkansas but remain in the SEC. Whomever takes over for Donovan will want to keep him; a lot of schools will be hoping Allen decides to take another trip around the shop.
The first task for the new Florida coach will be keeping Allen on the roster. The next will be to squeeze the UF administration to get moving on the promised upgrade to the O’Connell Center as well as the Gators’ practice gym.
Florida had the luxury of a Hall of Fame talent on its bench for the past 19 years, and a Hall of Fame coach for at least the past 10. That’s not easy to replace. But it can be done.
