John Calipari has officially parted ways with Kentucky men’s basketball as UK athletic director Mitch Barnhart now shifts his full focus to a coaching search. One of the names suspected as a possible candidate is Billy Donovan, who is currently the head coach of the Chicago Bulls.
Well, we can probably go ahead and scratch him off the list. Donovan informed reporters ahead of Chicago’s game against the New York Knicks on Tuesday night that he has not heard from Kentucky and is committed to the Bulls organization.
“I have not been contacted by anybody (at UK), I haven’t spoken to anybody. My total commitment and focus is here to this team and to this group,” Donovan, who was an assistant at UK under Rick Pitino from 1989-94, told reporters. “A lot of this stuff I think sometimes turns out to be speculation, but I have not had any contact with anybody and my commitment is here.”
The Bulls are currently 37-41 on the season and will make the postseason.
On the heels of Sunday’s news that John Calipari would leave Kentucky for Arkansas, Donovan’s name was quickly thrown out as one of the top expected candidates. But by Tuesday morning, national media members were already shooting down that possibility.
Donovan then confirmed that he is — as of right now — not interested in being the next head coach at Kentucky. A name already being seriously reported as a top target for Barnhart is Baylor’s Scott Drew.
There’s also the fact that Donovan has not coached college basketball since he left Florida in 2015. While he brought unprecedented success to the Gators from 1996-2015 (a 467-186 overall record, 14 NCAA Tournament appearances, seven Elite 8s, and back-to-back national championships in 2006 and 2007), that was nearly a decade ago now — the game has changed dramatically since Donovan was coaching in Gainesville. NIL and the transfer portal reign supreme.
Donovan jumped from Florida to the NBA where he led the Oklahoma City Thunder for five seasons (2015-20) before taking over with the Bulls in 2020. He’s won more games than he’s lost during that time, but has advanced past the first-round playoffs just once — his first season at OKC with future Hall of Famers Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook on the roster.
Donovan has been known as Barnhart’s golden goose, but it does not appear that the third time will be the charm.
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