Billy the Kid is headed to the Naismith Hall of Fame.
Billy Donovan, the longtime Florida coach and current coach of the Chicago Bulls, was announced on Saturday as a member of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2025.
The news comes as Florida is set to meet Auburn in the Final Four Saturday night at the Alamodome, followed by Cooper Flagg and Duke facing Houston. It is Florida’s first Final Four since Donovan guided them there in 2014.
It also comes one day after Rick Pitino, Donovan’s former coach at Florida, was named the Associated Press co-Coach of the Year along with Auburn’s Bruce Pearl.
“Billy is like a son to me,” Pitino said in December. “He deserves to be up in that rafter.”
Carmelo Anthony, Dwight Howard, Sue Bird and Maya Moore are among the other stars joining Donovan in this class.
Donovan coached the Gators for 19 seasons from 1996-2015, winning back-to-back national championships in 2006-7, while also making four Final Fours, winning six Southeastern Conference regular season championships, four SEC Tournament titles and tallying 467 wins.
Donovan guided the Gators to a No. 1 national ranking in five different seasons, posted sixteen straight 20-win seasons and earned seventeen consecutive postseason appearances during his 19 seasons at the helm in Gainesville. His 467 wins as an SEC head coach trail only Adolph Rupp, and only Rupp and Joe B. Hall have won more SEC championships.
There was a time when any of these goals seemed unattainable for the University of Florida men’s basketball program – until March 27, 1996, when Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley hired the up-and-coming Donovan who turned the Gators into a perennial national power. Under Donovan, the once unattainable goals of the program became a reality, as he established UF among a very short list of elite programs in the nation.
On Feb. 28, 2015, Donovan became just the second coach in college basketball history to pick up his 500th Division I win before his 50th birthday, joining Bob Knight in that exclusive club. In 2007, the Gators became just the seventh team in NCAA history and the first in 15 years to win back-to-back titles.
Donovan was also a winner at Providence College, where he led the Friars to their best season in school history and a trip to the Final Four in 1987.
Under Donovan, Florida set a school record with 17 straight post-season appearances from 1997-2014, including 14 NCAA Tournament appearances and six Elite Eight trips from 2006-2014. The Gators also put together 16 consecutive 20-win seasons from 1998-2014.
UF made the school’s first-ever appearance in the National Championship game in 2000 before winning the title in both 2006 and 2007. Donovan won 35 NCAA Tournament games, more than any other SEC coach ever has, and his 467 wins rank behind only Adolph Rupp in SEC history
