O'Gara: What if Nate Oats is modern-day Billy Donovan?
It’s now a question that’s worth asking.
When Nate Oats cut down the Crypto.com Arena nets to lead Alabama to its first Final Four in school history, my mind shifted to somebody else who was once a promising up-and-coming offensive wizard who did historic things on the hardwood at a football-focused SEC school — Billy Donovan.
What Oats has done through 5 years at Alabama is shades of Donovan’s start at Florida. It’s now fair to ask — what if Oats is modern-day Donovan?
Granted, they were separated by about 15 years when they accepted their respective SEC jobs and when Donovan celebrated his first Final Four at Florida in Year 4, it marked the second in program history.
Donovan’s first Final Four (and eventual runner-up finish) in 2000 was 6 years removed from his predecessor, Lon Kruger, leading Florida to that historic first Final Four in 1994. But Kruger’s Final Four trip marked the last time he won an NCAA Tournament game at Florida. A Round of 64 exit and a losing season in 1995-96 prompted Kruger to leave Florida for Illinois.
Go back and read this Orlando Sentinel article following Kruger’s move to Illinois:
In recent seasons, Kruger has noted the lack of consistent fan support. Average home attendance dropped nearly 2,000 this past season to 7,896, down from 9,838 in 1994-95. But even in the Gators’ first Final Four season in 1993-94, when they went 13-0 at home, average attendance was less than 10,000 at the 12,000-seat O’Connell Center.
Illinois, a member of the Big Ten Conference, averages about 15,000 fans each season at 16,450-seat Assembly Hall. The Illini were 18-13 last season and finished ninth in the 11-team Big Ten.
Translation: Kruger sought a basketball school, not a football school.
We know what happened after that. Florida became much more of a basketball school under Donovan than any of the places Kruger ran. Donovan co-existed at a time when Steve Spurrier was king, and he didn’t seek greener pastures at a time when Urban Meyer was king.
Oats didn’t seek greener pastures when Saban was king. It remains to be seen just how king Kalen DeBoer will be in Tuscaloosa, but one thing is certain. Alabama is still a football school. The question is whether Oats can replicate the 2 decades of success that Donovan had at a football school.
I know, Florida fans. You’re an “everything school.” You take pride in that, as you should. Florida is still the only Division I school to win both football and men’s basketball national titles (outright) in the same school year. Donovan made that a reality, along with the $64.5 million renovation that the O’Connell Center underwent in 2016 a year after he left Florida for the Chicago Bulls.
But deep down, Florida fans, you know that Florida football moves the needle unlike anything else on campus.
Oats has had to answer plenty of questions about that dynamic at Alabama. Publicly, he’s never said a bad word about the football spotlight at Alabama. With the Crypto.com Arena net draped around his neck, Oats still addressed that topic (via The Next Round):
“I love the fact we’re at a football school. We’re gonna try to add another sport to the championship school level, because I think we’re knocking on the door there.” – Nate Oats after Alabama’s win over Clemson to advance to the first Final Four in program history.#RollTide… pic.twitter.com/UgqJyeOq5w
— The Next Round (@NextRoundLive) March 31, 2024
“I love the fact we’re at a football school,” Oats said on Saturday night. “We’re gonna try to add another sport to the championship school level because I think we’re knocking on the door there.”
It helps that Oats will be paid like a coach at a basketball school. His newly minted extension, which runs through the rest of the decade, will make him 1 of the 5 highest-paid coaches in the sport. Like Donovan, his continued success will still make him a popular name when a basketball blue-blood job or an NBA opens up (let’s not forget about Donovan’s rumored flirtation with the Kentucky job and his day as the Orlando Magic head coach). There’s not much Alabama can do that it isn’t already doing that’ll change that.
Well, Alabama could speed up those Coleman Coliseum funding/renovation plans. If that undertaking, which is been delayed because of rising construction costs, continues for the next few years, keep an eye on how that impacts Oats. Does he grow bitter? Or does he have that same attitude that he had about the football presence that he had after the Final Four.
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Donovan wasn’t necessarily navigating the same sort of big-revenue arms race that Oats and current coaches are, but he did ride the momentum of his early success to get a $10 million state-of-the-art basketball practice facility, which opened ahead of the 2001-02 season.
That was after Donovan closed Year 5 at Florida. That’s the place that Oats is nearing now. Here’s how the 2 stack up to this point:
It remains to be seen what type of financial momentum this historic Final Four run will yield. With Donovan, it also came with higher expectations. It’s easy to forget that before Donovan repeated, his runner-up season was followed by 5 consecutive opening weekend exits. He was the guy who couldn’t win the big one. If Oats had been eliminated on opening weekend, he would’ve continued to face questions about whether his up-tempo, 3-point-happy offensive scheme could compete at a championship level in March.
Instead, though, Oats did the unthinkable. Beating UConn is also considered unthinkable. It’s ironic that Oats is trying to prevent UConn from becoming the first team to repeat since Donovan’s Gators. The formula to do that for Oats will look nothing like what we saw from Donovan’s squad 17 years ago. Alabama might shoot more threes in the first half than the 18 that Florida shot in the entire 2007 national championship.
Win or lose — UConn is an 11.5-point favorite over Alabama (DraftKings Sportsbook) — this is starting to feel like the beginning of something special with Oats in Alabama. Maybe he’ll never win multiple titles and become one of the best college coaches of the 21st century like Donovan, but betting against the Tide coach has been a losing formula.
The SEC has lacked someone like Donovan since he left for the NBA nearly a decade ago. It’s now at least a question.
What if modern-day Billy is building a basketball monster in Tuscaloosa?