Long Island's Billy Donovan enters basketball Hall of Fame

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — Billy Donovan and Rick Pitino 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. “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 that his preferred destinations — Northeastern and Fairfield — weren’t interested, Pitino suggested he drop 25 pounds and work on his skills.

“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.”

Said Donovan, “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. I am incredibly indebted to Coach Pitino.”

Donovan’s brief pro career included 44 games for Pitino with the Knicks in 1987-88. Afterward, he was drawn to coaching. Pitino was skeptical but hired him as a grad assistant at Kentucky, and he became associate head coach in four years before taking over at Marshall. Donovan coached the Thundering Herd for two seasons before his 19 at Florida, and 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.”

Florida may have been known as a football school when Donovan took over before the 1996-97 season, but 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.”

By Roger Rubin

roger.rubin@newsday.com@rogrubin

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.