Billy Donovan

Now there is a rumor that UK is going to offer Billy Donovan a 1 million dollar raise per season to become Kentucky's next coach. This may be true, but I still don't think Billy is coming to UK.

I must admit that I am intrigued by Billy's responses to questions about the vacant UK job. But, I still think he is using the attention to gain more of an advantage in negotiations with Florida.

First off, I really don't believe the rumor. I think UK would go bigger than that considering that it has already been reported that Florida was already willing to give Billy a raise in that neighborhood before the UK job came open. Secondly, if UK were making an under the table offer to gauge Billy's interest I think they would have done a better job of keeping the information from leaking to the media.

The wildcard in all of this is the fact that Kentucky has hired a "head hunting" firm to help in the coaching search. This firm is apparently the same company that was negotiating with Tubby Smith's agent on behalf of the University of Minnesota some six weeks before Tubby announced his resignation at UK. And remember, nobody had a clue that Tubby had been contacted about the Minnesota job before he announced his resignation at UK. I'm sure this firm has spoken with Billy's agent already and it doesn't seem like there has been mention in the media about any other potential candidates being contacted. I would be willing to bet that if this firm has contacted Billy's agent they already know what kind of monetary figure it would take to lure Billy away from Florida, if that is even possible. I just find it hard to believe that this firm would conduct themselves differently with Billy than they did with Tubby. So, why are we hearing rumors about a potential offer to Billy when we didn't hear anything about the Minnesota offer to Tubby? I just don't believe any of it.