NASHVILLE, Tenn. — There is unbridled passion Billy Donovan speaks with when he goes on the defensive for someone near and dear to him.
His tone is raised, his eyes are wide and he wants you to feel how adamant he is.
But when Donovan spoke this way on Thursday following No. 8 seed Florida’s 69-61 win against ninth-seeded Alabama, he wasn’t talking about one of his players.
He was talking about the man whose team he’s just defeated for the 11th straight time — Alabama coach Anthony Grant.
"Let’s put it this way, Alabama better hope he comes back, that’s what I would say," Donovan said.
To say Grant is on the hot seat in Tuscaloosa is an understatement. His Crimson Tide are 18-14 and went 8-10 during Southeastern Conference regular season play. It’s his sixth season at the helm, and Alabama has only been to the NCAA tournament once under his watch, losing to Creighton as a No. 9 seed in the opening round of the 2012 big dance.
Alabama ranks No. 78 in team RPI — two spots behind Florida — and is 0-9 against RPI top-50 teams and 5-5 against teams ranked 51-100.
Donovan looks beyond the wins and losses, though, in his evaluation of Grant.
"I would tell you, as a parent, there’s not a coach in the country I would want my son to play for than Anthony Grant," Donovan said. "And you know what? Even if they did not have a winning season or he didn’t have a successful four years there, him becoming a man, as a father, would be a lot more important than if he won a lot of games, he cut down some nets, but absolutely didn’t learn anything about growing up and maturing."
Grant and Donovan go way back to the start of Donovan’s coaching career at Marshall when Grant was so athletic and competitive as a young assistant that he had to play on separate teams from fellow assistant John Pelphrey during staff pick up games. When things got thin numbers wise for the 1994 Thundering Herd, Grant — then 28 years old — would hop in on the scout team to give a look.
Grant stayed with Donovan through the transition to Florida through all the ups-and-downs Donovan went through to build the program before leaving to become head coach at VCU in 2006.
The relationship between the two still exists today as they shared a moment outside the locker room after Florida’s victory over Alabama. They’re friends, no matter who coaches where, you can hear it in Billy Donovan’s voice.
"I do know that there’s a lot of support internally in their athletic department for Anthony," Donovan said. "I think that those people understand the man that they have and I think that — listen, we all want to win and I get that point. But I think one of the things that sometimes bothers me in coaching more than anything else is there’s never, ever anything that’s ever talked about of what coaches do in terms of developing these guys into young men."
Follow Richard Johnson on Twitter @RagjUF
