Billy the Kid is one straight shooter for Gators
By Bill Doherty
Special to ESPN.com
When he first arrived at the University of Florida back in 1996, coach Billy Donovan vowed to attract high school hoops All-Americans to Gainesville with the same "dribble-high-and-let-it-fly" style that he learned at the knee of Rick Pitino.
The initial response? Laughter.
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Sure, Billy the Kid's uptempo style would be a nice distraction -- that is, at least until Florida's spring football practice got started. Pigskin was king in Gainesville and always would be, skeptics said. Even his mentor -- Pitino -- told Donovan that he would always be in the shadow of the school's resident genius Steve Spurrier.
No one's laughing anymore. Especially after Florida (28-7), a fifth seed in this year's NCAA Tournament, beat the East's No. 1 (Duke), No. 3 (Oklahoma State) and No. 4 (Illinois) seeds by a combined 38 points to reach this weekend's Final Four. In just four years, Florida basketball has become Donovan: Young, energetic, ambitious. Relentless.
And talented.
"If he stays in the game for 20 or 30 years," said CBS analyst Billy Packer after watching Donovan lead the Gators past Duke and Oklahoma State last weekend, "Billy Donovan will go down as one of the greatest coaches of all time."
He's certainly off to a flying start. Donovan is the first coach in Florida history to lead the Gators to consecutive Sweet 16s. Donovan's four-year Florida record of 77-48 includes a 50-16 mark the past two seasons. He's 6-1 in NCAA Tournament games the past two years. And in the past two weeks, Donovan has beaten three of the nation's most formidable bench coaches -- Illinois' Lon Kruger (the coach he followed at Florida), Duke's Mike Krzyzewski and Oklahoma State's Eddie Sutton, a trio with a combined 44 NCAA Tournament trips to Donovan's two.
Donovan, 34, can further his budding reputation when the Gators (28-7) face North Carolina (22-13) in the national semifinals Saturday night at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis, where he will take the floor as the youngest Final Four coach since 1940.
"He's an outstanding coach, good recruiter, and the way they play is a fun type of thing," Sutton said. "I would hope he wouldn't get the big head because he gets to go to the Final Four so soon. What I do know is that he has a great coaching career in front of him."
The reason? Donovan's unmatched work ethic. Thanks to countless hours on the road, Donovan has made Spurrier look like the second-best recruiter in Gainesville. Within three months of taking the Florida job, Billy the Kid had a verbal commitment from Florida's best prep sophomore, a Donovan clone from Cape Coral named Teddy Dupay who would go on to set the state's career prep scoring mark with 3,744 points.
"It was a gamble," Dupay said. "I didn't know for sure what this would turn into, but I had an idea. I expected the best players in the state to come."
They did. After Dupay, Major Parker came on board. Then Brent Wright. Udonis Halsem and Ladarius Halton fell in formation and the lethal in-state combination eventually caught Mike Miller's attention a half a country away in South Dakota. Landing Miller was the most important piece to the puzzle and Donovan pulled out all the stops to get his man.
"Coach Donovan could recruit Jupiter," Parker said. "Not Jupiter, Florida. Jupiter, the planet."
True to his nickname, this "Billy the Kid" has a certain outlaw flavor to him that rubs some people the wrong way. Kansas' Roy Williams complained to the NCAA two years ago about Donovan's recruiting style after the Gators beat the Jayhawks for Miller. South Carolina's Eddie Fogler made a similar complaint after Donovan pulled in a second consecutive national top-five recruiting class before this season. Donovan defended himself both times, sniping at Williams and Fogler for having sour grapes. The NCAA looked into both allegations, and cleared Florida both times. The SEC sent a letter of reprimand telling Donovan and Fogler to play nice.
Donovan doesn't play nice. He plays straight and fair, but he plays hard. Take the 24-hour home visitation period that the NCAA allows a coach and a recruit. "My thing is, if you're going to give me 24 hours, I'm going to use all 24 hours," Donovan said. "Now, if (other coaches) want to use two hours on a home visit, that's (their) prerogative. But don't criticize me because I'm taking advantage of every single minute."
When he recruited Miller, a 6-foot-8 forward and the most highly recruited player ever from the Dakotas, Donovan arranged a home visit for himself and assistant John Pelphrey.
"At 12:01 (a.m.), the doorbell rang, and I knew it was Coach (Donovan)," Miller said. "He was there one minute after midnight. He spent most of the night with my parents. I went to sleep."
The next morning, Donovan and Pelphrey were at Miller's school. That afternoon they were back at his house. Some time at around midnight, 24 hours after they first stepped into his home, the Florida coaches left. Donovan also went to New Hampshire for 6-9 forward Matt Bonner, tiny Shellman, Ga., for 6-8 forward Donnell Harvey (the 1998-99 USA Today National Player of the Year), and West Virginia for 6-3 point guard Brett Nelson. Actually, farther than West Virginia for Nelson, who was considered the best player in that state since Jerry West.
"I played in a tournament in Germany my junior year," Nelson said. "One day I was playing in a game and I looked into the crowd, and there (Donovan) was, on the front row."
Stories of Donovan's recruiting exploits are legion. The summer before Miller committed to Florida, Donovan or Pelphrey watched him play 24 consecutive days, from South Dakota to Long Beach, Calif., to Las Vegas to Teaneck, N.J. "I came to expect it," Miller said. "Everywhere I turned, there he was."
His teams win by being seemingly everywhere too, just like the great Pitino teams at Kentucky. Thanks to his stellar work on the recruiting trail, Donovan now has 10 gifted players and a wide-open style that makes use of every single one of them. Donovan's teams press from the opening tip and seduce opposing teams into running with them. As the Gators have proven in this Final Four run, luring 19 and 20-year-olds into a run-and-gun contest is about as easy as it was for Mena Suvari's character to get Kevin Spacey's full attention in "American Beauty."
Illinois and Duke, a six-man team with one true ballhandler (freshman Jason Williams) were both sucked into 40 minutes of full-court, fast-breaking action that their personnel were ill-suited to maintain. All the while, Donovan kept fresh bodies coming in waves, sometimes five at a time. Still, the Gators were supposed to have their problems with Oklahoma State, a team with more seniors than you can find at bingo night (seven). Instead, Florida sprinted out to a 17-point lead before Oklahoma State clawed back to within three with 7:56 left to play. But Harvey (10.2 ppg, 7.0 rpg), a freshman sensation in most other programs but a 20.3-minute per game for Donovan this season, took over down the stretch. With the Cowboys spent from play catch-up ball all day, Harvey exploded for five straight points in a 1:24 span to put the Cowboys away.
"You attack their press early and you score points," said Sutton. "But what happens is they finally wear you down if you don't have the same number of soldiers. Your legs go and you start missing three-point shots, you don't execute as well, and you don't block out and you start fouling them."
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You attack their press early and you score points. But what happens is they finally wear you down if you don't have the same number of soldiers. Your legs go and you start missing three-point shots, you don't execute as well, and you don't block out and you start fouling them.
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Oklahoma State coach Eddie Sutton, after his team lost to Florida
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Sutton has certainly zeroed in on what has gone wrong for the Gators' first four NCAA tourney foes this spring, a quartet that the Gators have outscored by a combined 58-30 in the final five minutes of regulation. After surviving a first round scare by a point over Butler, the Gators have been downright scary themselves -- running teams into submission, just like Pitino's old Kentucky teams did.
Need proof that the Gators are tiring out their opponents? They held Butler's starting guard tandem of Thomas Jackson and LaVall Jordan to a combined 6 of 22 shooting. Two days later, Illinois broke out to an early 28-21 lead before fatigue set in near the end of the first half. The result? A 22-7 Florida run that spanned the end of the first half and the start of the final 20 minutes. For the game, the Gators shot a robust 48.1 percent from the field compared to just 38.8 percent by the Illini.
And as Sutton pointed out, the Gators regularly parade to the foul line. Against Illinois, they made 32 of 41 tries. In contrast, Illinois went to the charity stripe just 22 times, making 15. The additional 17 free throws that the Gators made matched the final spread in the game, which the Gators won by a 93-76 count.
Against the essentially six-man Duke squad in the Sweet 16, Florida once again constantly shuttled fresh players in and out, enabling the 10-deep Gators to apply unyielding pressure against the Blue Devils, which played three players - Shane Battier, Jason Williams and Chris Carrawell - at least 37 minutes. Florida's relentless pressure eventually got the best of Duke as Blue Devil starters Jason Williams (6 of 20 from the field, 5 turnovers) and freshman center Carlos Boozer both fouled out, the Blue Devils made just three of 19 three-pointers, and committed an uncharacteristically-high 22 turnovers in the Gators' eye-opening 87-78 win. Florida scored the final 14 points of that game.
"Florida played a great game," said Duke's Battier afterward. "They imposed their tempo on us. They attacked all game."
Against Oklahoma State, it was more of the same. The veteran Cowboys made just seven of 20 three-balls, turned the ball over 18 times and attempted half as many free throws (12) as the Gators (19 of 24 from the stripe). What's more, the Cowboys -- who led the Big 12 in both scoring defense and field goal percentage -- allowed the Gators to shoot .510 against them as the four Gator freshmen accounted for 40 points, the three UF sophomores for 29 more points.
"Florida doesn't mind so much that you score," said Oklahoma State's Doug Gottlieb, "because that allows the ball to go through the basket so they can get it and play some more offense."
Up next is North Carolina, which will combat 10-deep Florida's exhausting press-and-run style with a six-man rotation that includes one true ballhandler, senior point guard Ed Cota. Basketball analysts like to say advancing in the NCAA tournament depends on matchups as much as talent. For North Carolina, Florida looks like a dangerous matchup.
"I think Florida's quickness is going to give North Carolina problems," Sutton said.
So how can the Heels win? A closer look at Florida's seven losses on the season shows that it will take a quality team, at the top of its game, to topple Billy the Kid's bunch. The Gators' seven losses have come to five NCAA tourney teams (Purdue, DePaul, Kentucky, Auburn and twice to Tennessee) as well as to one NIT team (Vanderbilt). The Commodores' win can be thrown out, as Vandy shot an unheard of 65.2 percent from 3-point range (18 of 24) against the Gators.
How did the other teams win? One common thread in Florida's seven losses is that the Gators couldn't hit the 3-ball on a consistent basis, particularly against Purdue (3 of 17), Kentucky (4 of 19) as well as both times against Tennessee (a combined 10 of 50). Butler also successfully defended the 3-point shot against Florida, holding the Gators to just 5 of 23 shooting from behind the arc.
Another key for the Tar Heels is to try to exploit their noticeable size advantage inside, just like Kentucky and Auburn both did in pinning losses on Florida earlier in March. In an 85-70 win, the Wildcats were able to foul out Harvey and went to free throw line nine more times than Florida. Auburn, a 78-70 winner over Donovan's troops, also won the parade to the foul line by constantly pumping the ball inside. By game's end, Auburn was 32 of 44 from the foul line (vs. 12 of 18 for the Gators) and had fouled out Brent Wright. Miller, Haslem, Bonner and Harvey committed four fouls apiece.
North Carolina coach Bill Guthridge has no doubt watched the Auburn tape several times and has seen that key reserves Harvey and Bonner have been foul-prone, at times, while Haslem, Florida's starting center, is closer to 6-6 than the 6-8 he's listed at. Guthridge knows that it's imperative for Cota to pump the ball into 7-foot junior Brendan Haywood and Kris Lang as often as possible.
"I think they are one of the bigger teams we have faced," says Florida's Kenyan Weaks, who grew up an N.C. State fan. "Especially with the front line they have with Brendan Haywood, Kris Lang and Jason Capel. Like always we are going to try to play our style of play, try to fatigue them so they will go out and do all the little things."
Aside from winning over recruits and winning basketball games, Donovan's style has another built-in fringe benefit: Balanced scoring, which means that even the most talented players are more likely to stay on campus longer rather than bolting early for NBA riches. This season, seven Gators are averaging between 7.9 points and 14.3 points per game. As a result, Miller (team-high 14.3 points on a mere 10 shots from the floor per game) is the only Gator underclassman thinking about NBA early entry. But let's face it, 14 points and under seven boards aren't exactly NBA lotto numbers, so Miller could be back next winter.
"I think that the best thing about our basketball team is that we're not caught up in what happens individually," said Miller. "We're so caught up in winning and moving on in the Tournament and doing good things for the team and for the program that it helps our team out. It's so easy to be caught up in yourself and it's a lot harder to do it for the team. I think that our team has done a great job of throwing everything aside and winning. If we can keep doing that, we can win the whole thing."
Bill Doherty, a freelance writer from Bethlehem, Pa., is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.
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