Billy Donovan is finally available -- 9 long days after the Mark Pope hire

Once Scott Drew and Dan Hurley were scratched off the list for Kentucky following John Calipari’s move to Arkansas, Billy Donovan emerged as the immediate fan favorite to take over the Wildcats. The Chicago Bulls head coach danced around answers regarding potential interest while those closest to Donovan stressed those conversations would not come until after the season ended, at the earliest. He had a job to do with the Bulls locked into the play-in game with eyes on the playoffs, two wins to glory for a potential opening-round battle against the No. 1 overall seed Boston Celtics.

Donovan was Mitch Barnhart’s golden goose after Tubby Smith’s departure and before John Calipari’s arrival. Would he go back for a third time, hoping to reel in the guy who led the Florida Gators to back-to-back national championships in 2006 and 2007?

Barnhart proved almost immediately that wasn’t the case, making a move on Mark Pope just hours after public denials from Drew and Hurley with a five-year deal finalized before the clock struck midnight Thursday evening. The BYU head coach was announced as Calipari’s replacement the following morning on Friday with a public press conference to follow inside Rupp Arena on Sunday.

You may have suffered from whiplash if you weren’t careful with how fast this thing got done. And that was by design.

“I felt comfortable with Mark. We’re diminishing — if we sit here and say, ‘Why didn’t I wait?’ I didn’t feel that I needed to, I was comfortable with who I had,” Barnhart said following Pope’s sold-out presser at Rupp on Sunday. “I liked him. I knew where I wanted to go, I had a couple two or three thoughts of where I wanted to go at the beginning, it played out. It’s no mystery we talked to someone first, and Mark knew that. I said, ‘This is the way this is going to work.’ I was comfortable with our process, our research, the people I was talking to, I felt like I was ready to go. So, let’s go.”

He talked about the transfer portal and the dead period ending, how little time you have to waste in today’s era of college basketball. Considering staff building and roster construction —- again, the portal closes for undergraduates on May 1 — it just wasn’t a risk Barnhart was willing to take.

Not when he had faith in Pope as his guy anyway.

“I don’t think there was anything more important at a time in our journey to find somebody that understood this Commonwealth, this fanbase and our program, what we needed. He checked every box,” Barnhart said. “He knew exactly what we needed and he knew exactly the pathway to get it done. … I’m glad to be in a really, really cool spot with a guy I’m looking forward to journeying with.”

So what would have happened if Barnhart had gone with a full-court pursuit of Donovan? Well, he wouldn’t have been available until today — nine days after the deal with Pope was finalized.

You see, the Bulls obliterated the Atlanta Hawks in their first play-in game on Wednesday, leading to another win-or-go-home scenario Friday against Miami. And with Jimmy Butler and Terry Rozier both out due to injury for the Heat, the NBA world had its eye on a potential upset, one that would push Chicago into that 1-8 first-round battle against Boston. Even with a sweep, Donovan’s season would not have wrapped up until April 30, the day before the portal closed.

Instead, the Heat blew out the Bulls 112-91 on Friday to fill that No. 8 slot, kicking Chicago out and leaving Donovan answering questions about Lonzo Ball’s long-term health and whether or not DeMar DeRozan would re-sign with the franchise.

Meanwhile, Mark Pope is finalizing his staff and laying the building blocks of his debut roster in Lexington, hosting visitors while going to meet with potential targets in person. We’ve got Cody Fueger, Jason Hart and Mark Fox named among assistants with Collin Chandler officially flipping his commitment to the Wildcats and Travis Perry talking about keeping his shoulder loose to get shots up in Pope’s offense. And once the dam breaks with portal additions, that 13-man roster will fill up in a hurry.

The new Kentucky coach has been planting the seeds up to this point, and now, it’s about harvesting.

Had Barnhart waited on Donovan, that process would not have begun until today, at the earliest. And that’s assuming he would have been ready to make the move and hit the ground running immediately — an ambitious hope in itself. That’s with finding his footing again in the college game after being out an entire decade, never experiencing the NIL and portal eras. Who would he hire? What would his recruiting philosophy be regarding high school prospects and transfer targets? His current connections are in the NBA.

If Pope is a step behind having to rebuild an entire roster following John Calipari’s abrupt departure, Donovan would have been a mile back. Not to say he wouldn’t have ever caught up — no one is denying he’s a brilliant coach with 901 career wins between college and the pros — but it would have been a legitimate process. Fielding a competitive roster in year one would have been tough, even if you think the long-term payoff would have been worth it.

The hope with Pope is you get both. That’s what Barnhart was banking on when he made that decision to go against the grain nine long days ago.