Billy Donovan returns as coach for USA Basketball in FIBA U19 World Championship

By Adam Silverstein
January 13, 2015

Florida Gators head coach Billy Donovan has been retained to continue leading USA Basketball during the 2015 FIBA U19 World Championship set to take place from June 27-July 5 in Crete, Greece.

Donovan, a court coach during the 2011 USA Basketball Men’s U19 National Team Training Camp, will return for his third stint as head coach while looking for his fourth international gold medal. He led American teams that that won gold in the 2012 FIBA Americas U18 Championship, 2013 FIBA U19 World Championship and 2014 FIBA Americas U18 Championship.

Donovan is the first repeat U19 head coach in USA Basketball history.

He is 19-0 with three gold medals, going 5-0 in both FIBA Americas U18 Championships that he coached and 9-0 in the 2013 FIBA U19 World Championship two summers ago in Prague, Czech Republic. His three United States national teams combined have won their 19 games by an average of 43.7 points.

“Our U19 team is going to really benefit from another year with Coach Donovan, Coach Cooley and Coach Miller,” said USA Basketball Junior National Team Committee chairman and Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim. “They had great success last summer, winning the gold medal, and we’re confident the squad is going to continue to improve with this staff in place.”

His coaching staff will remain intact with head coaches Ed Cooley of Providence and Sean Miller of Arizona returning from the 2014 FIBA Americas tournament.

“USA Basketball has been a first-class organization to be a part of over the past several years, and it is an honor to be able to come back and represent our country again this summer,” said Donovan in a press release from the organization. “Sean Miller and Ed Cooley are both great guys and excellent coaches. It was very rewarding for me working side by side with them on the U18 team last summer, and it will be great to have that continuity with the staff again with the U19 team.”

Donovan will begin coaching the team in June at training camp in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

2 Comments

Ken (CA) says:

January 13, 2015 at 1:20 pm

I’m going to be very curious as to what the roster will look like and if there are any kids on it that might be thinking of coming to UF or already signed to UF

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gatorboi352 says:

January 13, 2015 at 3:26 pm

I do wonder though, how much of his success at this level has been his awesome coaching ability… and how much is it just his players simply being ‘head and shoulders’ better than every other team they go up against.

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