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BILL DONOVAN

2006 NCAA CHAMPION COACH, UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

A kid no more, Donovan begins his 10th season at the helm of the University of Florida, the longest consecutive tenure of any Gator coach and the longest active tenure at one school of any coach in the Southeastern Conference. As a coach he has grown and developed from Billy the Kid to one of the great leaders in college basketball, employing the same techniques he used to be successful as a player and molding his teams in the same shape. And as the 2006 Champion of College Basketball, he now stands where few have gone before.

The results have been undeniably positive. He has taken a program that experienced pockets of success and has made history.

Winning the 2006 NCAA Final Four Championship

  • An appearance in the 2000 National Championship game.
  • The No. 1 ranking in the nation in consecutive years.
  • Eight straight 20-win seasons.
  • Eight consecutive NCAA appearances.
  • An SEC Tournament title.

There was a time when any of these goals seemed unattainable for the University of Florida basketball program. Until March 27, 1996 when Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley hired the up-and-coming Donovan who has turned the Gators into a perennial national power.

Under Donovan the once unattainable goals of the program have become a reality, as he has molded the University of Florida into one of the top overall programs in the nation.

For those who have followed Donovan’s career it should come as no surprise that he has made Florida basketball a winner.

He was 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. He was a winner when he laced it up as a New York Knick with the elite athletes in the NBA. He was a winner in five years as an assistant at Kentucky and was part of the Wildcats’ Final Four run in 1993. He was a winner as a head coach when he inherited a struggling Marshall program and in two short years won more than 60 percent of his games and put fans back in the seats. And now he has created Hoop Hysteria in Gainesville. Donovan is one of only two people in the history of Division I college basketball who have played in a Final Four, served as an assistant coach on a Final Four team and was a head coach of a Final Four team.

Under Donovan, Florida has set a school record with eight straight post-season appearances, including a record seven straight NCAA Tournament bids and put together seven consecutive 20-win seasons for the first time in school history.

UF made the school’s first-ever appearance in the National Championship game in 2000 and also made back-to-back Sweet 16 appearances for the first time in school history in 1999 and 2000. Donovan is already the winningest NCAA Tournament coach in UF history and his 10 NCAA Tournament wins surpasses the total of seven in school history before his arrival.

After the school had just one Southeastern Conference Championship in 77 seasons prior to his arrival, Donovan has tallied two SEC titles in eight seasons (2000 and 2001). Florida and Kentucky are the only two SEC schools to capture consecutive league crowns in the past 29 years. Florida has captured three SEC East titles under Donovan and in 2005 put together a remarkable run to the SEC Tournament title with a 17-point win over Kentucky, Florida’s first SEC Tournament title.

And on February 3, 2003, the University of Florida found itself on top of the national rankings for the first time in school history, owning the No. 1 spot in both the Associated Press and ESPN/USA Today Coaches’ polls, a feat matched again during the 2003-04 season.

Florida has won 166 games over the past seven seasons, or 23.7 per season, while winning 100 games in a four-year stretch between 2000-03, the first time in school history a UF class graduated with 100 victories.

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Bill Donovan

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