Billy Donovan speaks out after rumor mill links him to Kentucky job

Billy Donovan's name is naturally one of the few that have been bantered around in the wake of John Calipari leaving Kentucky.

It would make sense, too. Donovan was an assistant coach at Kentucky from 1989 to 1994 under Rick Pitino. He went on to win back-to-back national championships with the Florida Gators in 2006 and 2007 — a fact that has come up a lot lately since Dan Hurley's UConn team, which just won the championship, is the first team to have gone back-to-back since Donovan's Gators accomplished the feat.

Donovan has been in the NBA since 2015 and has been head coach of the Chicago Bulls since 2020. A reunion with the college game at Kentucky would be a home run hire for the Wildcats, but despite how much it makes sense, Donovan recently recommitted himself to the Bulls.

In fact, he went as far as to say that he hasn't even heard from Kentucky since the Calipari news broke.

"I’ll just say this. Obviously, I spent my first five years in coaching when Coach Pitino gave me a job, two kids born there. I think like at all my stops, you have very, very fond memories,” Donovan said (h/t On3). “I have not been contacted by anybody, I haven’t spoken to anybody. My total commitment and focus is here to this team and to this group.

“I think with what we’ve been through this year and the way we started and we’ve talked about it, I give our guys a lot of credit to our guys for hanging in there and battling through some of the things we’ve had to battle through. And I’m with them on that, and I’m committed to them with that. Again, a lot of this stuff, I think sometimes turns out to be speculation. But I have not had any contact with anybody and my commitment is here.”