GAINESVILLE — When the Oklahoma City Thunder fired Scott Brooks on April 22, Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley knew there was a good chance Billy Donovan might be leaving for that job, so he began thinking about who his next basketball coach might be.
Donovan is leaving after 19 years in Gainesville, and it has been an emotional few days for Foley. But the time has come to put those emotions aside and begin the task of finding Donovan's successor.
Foley and members of his staff met Monday afternoon to begin that process. He said no coach had been contacted and "the slate is totally wide open right now." Anthony Grant and John Pelphrey both have head coaching experience and were set to be on Donovan's Gators staff before his departure.
One thing is for sure: Foley is out to prove that Florida basketball isn't dead without Donovan.
"You know what excites us? When people say it can't continue because Billy is leaving," Foley said. "It can't continue because that's not a great job. I don't buy that for one second. I'm going to tell you right now, it's a really good job. The competitive juices get going.
"We know what Billy has built here, and I think Billy said it himself, we're not taking a step back.''
Donovan said he won't be directly involved, but took a moment to praise Grant and Pelphrey.
"Jeremy is the best athletic director in the country, and he's done this before," Donovan said. "I just basically told him that I'm here in any way to help and support and assist in any way. I'm not going to try to inject myself in anything going forward from here, but I do want to see this program do extremely well."
In the past year Foley has replaced the men's golf, football and gymnastics coaches. He said he won't rush this hire.
"I don't want to put a timetable on it," Foley said. "The key is to have something in place obviously sometime in June because July is a huge recruiting month, and you're not going to hire a coach on July 1.
"So we have some time to do our due diligence. That's what we like to do, call a lot of people, and try to figure out the right person."
Contact Antonya English at aenglish@tampabay.com. Follow @TBTimes_Gators.