By LARRY VAUGHT
Billy Donovan knows about both sides of the Kentucky-Florida rivalry. He was an assistant coach under Rick Pitino at UK and now has been at Florida longer than any other active SEC coach has been at his school.
So what does he think of the rivalry between the two SEC powers?
“One thing I’ve always said is that being at Kentucky for a five-year period and finding out a lot more about their history and their tradition, they’ve set the bar, so to speak. Their program has been in this league a long time. I think every school in this conference looks at Kentucky as being the program to try to become,” Donovan said. “Obviously, it’s hard to do because they’ve done it for such a long period of time, not just here recently.
“I think it’s great having them in our league. I think that’s been terrific because it certainly draws a lot of attention to our league. Since John (Calipari) has been there, he’s done a terrific job. I think Tubby (Smith) did a great job. Coach (Rick) Pitino did a great job. Eddie Sutton, the list goes on and on with the coaches that have been there and the jobs they have done.
“I think that’s a great thing for us to be able to constantly try to strive and achieve towards. But that’s really, in a lot of ways, a lifetime of trying to achieve something like that because they’ve done it longer than maybe anybody else in the country or in college basketball for that matter.”
3 Responses to Florida coach Billy Donovan knows every SEC school wants to become the program that Kentucky has had for years
Leave a Reply
Blue Zoom Radio Show
Polls
Loading ...Choose Your Favorite!
kentucky is the face of the SEC when it comes to basketball just as alabama is the face for the football program
I have said all along the reason college basketball is as competitive as it is and has so many great programs is because of UK. They all saw what Rupp was doing and they wanted a piece of it too. They built their programs to compete with UK. It does not matter how big the arena, the total number of students at the school, the number of buildings on campus, they all want to compete and win. They all want to be UK, of course, we know that is never going to happen. There is only one and you can’t clone it or copy it.
Florida is the only SEC school that allows basketball to rise near football in importance. Other than that the SEC is a football school, with UK and to a much lesser degree Vandy being basketball schools playing in a football league. No, every SEC school does not aspire to dominate basketball like UK does. Look at it like this: programs like Alabama, LSU, Georgia, South Carolina, Auburn and even Tennessee view football like we view basketball and basketball like we view football. Some would like to deny the overall weakness of SEC basketball, but I say that it is a GREAT THING FOR UK. I am delighted that we can dominate this league most years and that this domination has gone on for most years of the history of the league.