SAN ANTONIO – On the day Billy Donovan reached basketball immortality, his old program wrote an amazing story worthy of his legacy.
The Florida Gators – Coach Todd Golden’s unbelievable, inconceivable Florida Gators – punched their ticket to the national championship game with a gritty, emotional 79-73 win over Auburn on the very same day their former coach was named to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Destiny doesn’t draw it up much better than this.
Donovan flew to San Antonio for the Hall of Fame announcement on Saturday and was in the building while these Golden Gators marched into the national championship game on Monday night.
“I saw Coach Donovan behind our bench as the second half started and I was thinking how amazing it is that he’s here – the man who is the face of Florida basketball,” Golden said. “There are some pretty high expectations now because of what he was able to do during his time here.”
Added Golden: “When I got into the locker room today, I looked at my phone and I had a text from my dad. It was a picture of him and Billy D’s dad right next to each other on a (shuttle) bus on the way to the game. Pretty sweet. Pretty special moment.”
A special moment for a special team – and a special player. With thousands of UF fans at the Alamo Dome Saturday night chanting “It’s Great to Be Florida Gator” while simultaneously performing the Gator Chomp, the team’s star player, Walter Clayton Jr., pointed skyward to the crowd and didn’t say a word.
He didn’t have to.
It was understood.
Everybody knew it – from the UF fan wearing the throwback Tim Tebow jersey to the UF fan wearing the throwback Joakim Noah jersey – every orange-and-blue-clad Gator crazy in the house could feel it.
The Gators are back.
The Florida Gators are going to the national championship game.
This wasn’t just a victory.
It was a resurrection.
It was a basketball revival.
When Donovan departed for the NBA after 19 years, four Final Fours and 467 victories – the second-most in SEC history – it was believed that he was taking Florida’s status as an elite basketball program with him. There were those who believed that UF hoops would become irrelevant just as it had been for most of its existence before and after Billy D.
Donovan’s successor, Mike White, had a modicum of success, but could never live up to immense expectations left behind by his predecessor. Enter Golden, who took over after White bolted for Georgia and embraced the Donovan legacy.
“For us, we’re just really proud of the fact that Florida basketball obviously has some very high-level gatekeepers; people that have been part of this program when it’s at its best,” Golden said. “Now that we’re back in the Final Four, we feel like we can kind of become part of that family.”
Even Golden has to pinch himself sometimes because of how improbable this journey has been — how quietly, then suddenly, the Gators barreled their way back into the center of the college basketball universe. They were ranked 21st to start the season and picked to finish sixth in the SEC.
No All-Americans. No surefire lottery picks. Just a team of overlooked grinders, guided by a young coach who believed before anyone else did.
With a record 14 SEC teams getting into the NCAA Tournament and a record seven league teams advancing to the Sweet 16, now there is just one standing. The Florida Gators, who will have their chance Monday night to win the SEC’s first national championship since Kentucky in 2012.
For the first time in over a decade, Florida basketball doesn’t feel like it’s chasing history.
It’s making it.
Clayton simply won’t allow the Gators to lose. He scored 30 points in the Elite 8 against Texas Tech and brought his team back from nine points down with ...
