After demolishing Alabama in the O’Connell Center on Tuesday night, Billy Donovan now owns four conference titles and two national championships in his 13 years as Florida’s head coach.
But one thing has always eluded him.
Donovan has never been named the Southeastern Conference Coach of the Year.
He had a chance in 2000, when the Gators finished with just seven losses. And he could have won in 2006, when Florida won its first national title.
But the drought should end this season.
For the first time since Joakim Noah, Al Horford, Corey Brewer and Taurean Green left four years ago, Donovan has Florida in position for a top three seed in the NCAA Tournament. But it has been a process since the ‘04s left Gainesville in 2007.
Donovan has dealt with two disappointing seasons that ended in the NIT, the early exits of Nick Calathes and Marreese Speights and the transfer of Jai Lucas.
But as the 2007 recruiting class, brought in on the heels of two national titles to usher in a new era of UF basketball, celebrated Senior Day — it was obvious: These last four seasons have been Donovan’s best coaching job yet.
He has taken that class (minus Calathes, who was the leader of the group and left school early to play in Greece) from two NITs to at least a share of this year’s regular-season SEC championship.
“It really has been incredibly rewarding for me, the process with these guys,” Donovan said. “I can tell you, I didn’t enjoy the process two years ago with them.”
Nobody represents the progress Donovan and this class has made from the first day they stepped on campus better than Chandler Parsons.
“He has my vote (for coach of the year),” Parsons said.
Parsons spent his first two seasons fighting for a starting job and averaging 8.1 and 9.2 points, respectively.
But in his fourth year as a Gator, Parsons is expected to earn first-team All-SEC honors.
This season has symbolized the process Donovan has gone through.
The Gators began the year ranked No. 11 and faced early season struggles, falling out of the polls after losses to Ohio State, UCF and Jacksonville.
Now, Florida is atop the SEC and on the verge of one of its best seasons in school history — and one of the best coaching jobs of Donovan’s coaching career.
With the addition of players like Kenny Boynton and Erving Walker along the way, Donovan’s vision has finally become a reality.
And that vision not only won Florida a conference title Tuesday, but should also bring Donovan an SEC Coach of the Year award.
“I hope he gets it,” senior Vernon Macklin said. “I really hope he gets it. That’s a great guy.
“I love his intensity. I love him as a coach.”
It would be fitting. After all, everything else he has worked toward the last four years has come true.
