SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — Billy Donovan and Rick Pitino both spent their formative years on Long Island — though in very different eras — but they will forever be linked in the college basketball annals because of what they did together to revolutionize the game in the 1986-87 season.
The college game had just adopted the three-point shot, and Pitino, coaching his second season with the Friars, envisioned it as a massive weapon. And no one on the Providence roster could deploy it like Donovan, his point guard.
The Friars began that season unranked and ended it in the Final Four. They changed the game by making three-point shooting not a skill but a strategy.
On Saturday night, the two were together again at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Donovan was enshrined for his accomplishments as a college coach — winning 502 games in 21 seasons and guiding Florida to consecutive national championships in 2006 and 2007 — and Pitino, a Hall of Famer himself and now the St. John’s coach, sponsored him.
There were two other inductees with New York ties: former Knick Carmelo Anthony and four-time WNBA champion Sue Bird (Syosset).
Bird halted her induction remarks to point to Donovan and say: “Billy, two Long Island kids on the same night? That’s crazy!”
Also inducted were Dwight Howard, official Danny Crawford, the 2008 USA Basketball men’s national team, Maya Moore, Sylvia Fowles and team owner Micky Arison.
“Without Coach Pitino, I’m not here,” said Donovan, who hails from Rockville Centre and attended St. Agnes High. “I was fortunate to play a couple years for him at Providence and then to work with him at Kentucky as an [assistant] coach. He found me as a chubby 5-10 point guard that clearly wasn’t good enough to play in the Big East, but he didn’t leave me where he found me.”
Pitino, who lived in Bayville and attended St. Dominic High, was 33 when Providence hired him off the Knicks’ coaching staff. When they first met, Donovan was seeking to transfer after his sophomore season. When the coach asked, the point guard said he weighed 192 pounds but added, “I love the game.” So Pitino played him one-on-one in the gym, decimated him and recalled to Newsday this week, “I definitely wanted him to leave.”
But rather than tell Donovan his preferred destinations — Northeastern and Fairfield — weren’t interested, Pitino suggested he drop 25 pounds and work on his skills. When he returned lean in the fall, Donovan won a lopsided rematch.
“He has the ability to totally change,” Pitino said. “The reason I’ve always been so fond of him is that of all the people in my 52 years coaching, he was greatest overachiever . . . By his senior year, he was Billy the Kid, fastest gun in the East.”
“Faith and belief have been incredibly powerful in my life, and it’s not been the faith and belief in myself, but it’s been the faith and belief that others have had in me when there was really no sign and no evidence to have faith,” Donovan said. “I am incredibly indebted to coach Pitino. . . . He taught me how to work, taught me what it was to compete, and he taught me about what really went into winning.”
Donovan’s brief pro career included 44 games for Pitino with the Knicks in 1987-88 and afterward, he was drawn to coaching. He developed as coach fast, becoming associate head coach in four years before he took over at Marshall. He coached the Thundering Herd for two seasons before his 19 at Florida. He now coaches the NBA Chicago Bulls.
Asked what drew him to coaching, Donovan said, “I loved the competition part and I love guys having to pull together and try to achieve something that they can no longer achieve . . . themselves. They need each other. I enjoy that part of it and probably some of it may be attributed to when I was playing (and) I needed my teammates. . . . to try to be able to win with a team.”
Florida may have been exclusively known as a football school when Donovan took over before the 1996-97 season, but he had it in the 2000 national title game. His 2006 and 2007 teams were the first to repeat as national champions since Duke in 1990-91.
“It takes a personality like Billy to go to a football place and not be bothered that it got all the headlines because he’s such a humble person,” Pitino said. “He was perfect for it. He was a perfect guy to turn around the annals of Florida and Florida now will forever be a basketball school because of Billy Donovan.”
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.