The Kentucky basketball team recently lost head coach John Calipari to Arkansas. A lot of Wildcats fans wanted Calipari gone anyways because of the team's recent lack of postseason success. Some people thought that Kentucky might fire Calipari, but it was a bit surprising to see him leave on his own. Now, the Wildcats need a new head coach, and the current betting favorite is Chicago Bulls head coach Billy Donovan.
Kentucky basketball is searching for their next head coach, and for a program like this, the hire has to be a good one. The coach to watch in recent days was Baylor basketball head coach Scott Drew, but he decided to stay with the Bears. Now, Billy Donovan is the betting favorite to be the next head coach at Kentucky according to Bovada.
These odds have Donovan as the heavy favorite as he is listed at +150. The next closest person is Mark Pope, and his odds are +1200.
Donovan going to Kentucky would make sense. He has been coaching in the NBA for almost 10 years now as he started with the Oklahoma City Thunder back in 2015. However, he coached the college game for over 25 years before that. He has a ton of experience coaching that level, and he even started his coaching career at Kentucky as an assistant.
After Donovan left Kentucky, he coached at Marshall for a few years before becoming the head coach at Florida, and he was wildly successful with the Gators. Before Monday, Donovan and Florida were the last college hoops team to win back-to-back national championships. Donovan has been very successful as a college basketball coach, and it wouldn't be surprising if he was interested in this job.
Billy Donovan said that he hadn't been contacted about the Kentucky job
Earlier this week at a Bulls game, Donovan was asked about the Kentucky basketball opening and how his name had been mentioned as a potential candidate. Donovan said that he hadn't been contacted by anyone about it and that he is focused on getting Chicago into the playoffs.
“I have not been contacted by anybody,” Donovan said, according to an article from NBA.com. “My total commitment and focus is here to this team and to this group. I think with what we’ve been through this year and the way we started (5-14), I give our guys a lot of credit for hanging in there and battling through some of the things we had to battle through, and I’m with them on that..A lot of this stuff sometimes turns out to be speculation. I’m happy here at this level. It is flattering to be mentioned with a school and a tradition like that in this game. My focus has been on our team and trying to help these guys get better and trying to close out these last games to the best of our ability, try to find a way to get a home game for the play-in, see if we can find our way into the playoffs.”
Now that Scott Drew is returning to Baylor, maybe Billy Donovan has been contacted about the opening. It will be interesting to see what his interest level looks like if Kentucky is considering him for the job.
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