He had a perfect storm of players, I liken his situation to USC football a couple years ago. Florida will be good, but they will never be as good as they were the last 2 seasons.

I'd like to believe that a leader of young men would have given more time to his decision. A leader doesn't backtrack, he moves forward. Good luck Billy!

Respect everyone, fear no one. We got beat by the best team two years in a row. We got next.

Is he officially returning to Florida? I thought he is still waiting to be released from his contract with Orlando?

He should have taken the money. An offer like that only comes around so often. Stay in Florida, triple your salary, team has a decent amount of talent and potential. Donovan doesn't have anything left to prove in college basketball.

I'm a Gator and can't believe we beat a great program like UCLA twice! We never had your heritage but now we developed our own. I can remember the first time we beat SC in football. It was an unbelievable experience and put us on the map. I guess you can say beating UCLA and USC and really helped my Gators. One small point - your cheerleaders were MUCH better!

Later and Go Gators!!

Recruiting boost? If I were an SEC coach I would tell recruits than Donovan is a phone call away from the NBA. I see this as a screw up on his part. He should have never taken the Orlando job, but he also should not have backed out after having already made the commitment. Kinda like Iraq :P

Hey Miguelito -

SC's still in their "perfect storm". Your nightmare is far from over.

sc did have a couple of bad weather days last year.
OSU and UCLA

Rothstar,
I hate to be the one to deliver the bad news, but you will never have another Reggie Bush. He was a phenom and was on a team with a great supporting cast. Now you have a good supporting cast without the phenom. Maybe I'm wrong, we will discuss this topic further after SC loses to Nebraska.

Anonymous,

I hate to break the news to you but USC has at least 2-3 phenoms coming in this season. You can count on them to join the rest of the "great supporting cast" and run into the BCS championship this year.

Meanwhile, the baby blue bruins have um...well no one in the 4 to 5 star range. Good luck with that this year.

Oh yeah, no one here will mention it, but it was all of my money that kept Wooden around Westwood for so long. No professional team could match the salaries I was paying.

It's all of my money that kept Pete Carroll around this long. No NFL team could match my housing "subsidies".

Trojans ... sigh. A thread about Billy Donovan has turned into a childish soapbox for internet losers.

As for a relevant post on Donovan ... I think he made the right move ultimately. Maybe he even staged the whole thing to just appear that much more committed to the program to help recruiting. That's the one thing he has always been: a stellar recruiter. I didn't think much for his coaching abilities until he outcoached Howland in the second half by setting up their offense to pass out of the double team (that's not much of a compliment, however). As for the NBA ... it's a business, with professional athletes, free agents. You're more of a manager than a coach.

Crazy he could turn down that money and the opportunity to coach at the highest level but the pros aren't for everyone.

As a UCLA fan, it would be great to play Florida once again. They were a terrific club the past two years and you always want to beat the team that ended your season. And since they did it twice, all the more reason.