Alabama landed its top choice, as Anthony Grant has agreed to take over at Alabama. Grant has been a hot name in college basketball coaching for the last few years. He has been very careful, though, about finding a bigger job where he feels he can succeed.The Billy Donovan protege has had great success with Virginia Commonwealth. He has been mentioned for several possible jobs and was nearly the successor at Florida when Donovan took then reversed field on the Orlando Magic gig. It almost seemed as if he has been waiting the last couple years to be sure that Donovan was not going anywhere.
Grant was the primary target of Alabama. This became clear with two trips down there by Grant and no other coach was interviewed once. The difficulty for Grant was whether he should wait and see what would happen with the Kentucky job and his mentor Billy Donovan. If Kentucky could succeed this time in luring Donovan away, Grant would be in line for the Florida gig
The ax fell on Billy Gillispie at Kentucky, but Billy Donovan removed his name very quickly from the speculation. That cleared the way for Grant to agree in principle to a deal that will pay him nearly $2 million. Or about half of what Alabama football coach Nick Saban makes.
