It’s all over.  Billy’s back in Hogtown.

It’s sweet, sirs.  Oh yes.  It’s sweet.

Yesterday evening, the Orlando Sentinel filed another late-night report on the Billy Donovan situation, indicating that a source close to the Magic said that Donovan would be released from his contract to return to Gainesville.

On Monday morning, however, the NBA franchise released an official statement on their website which makes it sound as though this ordeal is far from over:

While Central Florida, the Orlando Magic and Billy were energized with the announcement of his contract signing on Friday, we know there was a different feeling in Gainesville and people have been tugging at him since that time.

Billy is conflicted with those emotions and the opportunity he has ahead in Orlando and in the NBA.

We’ve had numerous conversations and a personal visit in Gainesville with Billy over the last 48 hours and we have a commitment from him that the dialogue between us will continue.

First things first: This will put the University of Florida in a coaching-search holding pattern until it is thoroughly concluded. Which is as it should be; the first and best option for Florida is to get the Kid, also known as the Godfather of Florida Basketball, back in the O’Dome. Anthony Grant is the biggest loser in this exchange.

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This is the sort of news which could knock the collective college basketball world flat on its ass.

Donovan. Is. Reconsidering.

Fox Sports was the first to break the news. Then ESPN broke into their coverage of the Yankees-Red Sox game to announce that Donovan had had a change of heart and was talking with the Magic about returning to Florida. Now ESPN.com has picked up the story and it’s rapidly spreading. At 11:53PM, Andy Katz is yacking on ESPN News via a phone interview.

HALLELUJAH… ! Probably… the Magic will need to let Donovan out of his contract. But if his heart is in Gainesville, wouldn’t the NBA franchise be crazy not release him? Discuss.

Nota Bene: Here’s a Kentucky fan (from Catspause.com) that really gets it.

One thing you can say about Billy Donovan is that he’s honest — perhaps to a fault.

Throughout the Donovan-to-UK saga (which, with its various twists and turns, left me and others thinking more than once that he was likely headed to Florida’s most hated hoops foe), Billy the Coy seemingly knew the perfect buttons to push and the right egos to stroke to keep attention focused on himself rather than his history-making basketball team. Leading into the Final Four, questions such as “Would you consider the Kentucky job?” would be answered with responses like, “I haven’t given any thought to it,” or “Right now, I’m just thinking about our basketball team and Florida.”

Right now…

Those two words, spoken in endless repetition, in answer after answer to question after question, made an otherwise celebratory time (Florida’s second Final Four in two years!) feel like a shipment of lead in a back alley; its weight never went away, even when you tried to ignore it. Finally, three days after the championship game, Donovan ended that speculation by announcing he was happy at Florida. In the end, all of the reasons Gator Nation thought he’d stay — family, an administration committed to basketball, a strong relationship with the A.D., and an adoring fan-base — won the day. Kentucky’s promise of a bigger spotlight, with no need to play the purported ’second fiddle’ to another sport, didn’t lure Donovan because at heart he is a humble, non-egotistical person who loves the game of basketball and his relationship with student-athletes.

And so it turned out that Billy the Coy was, in fact, Billy the True; he was simply being honest to an extreme degree. He hadn’t given thought to coaching at Kentucky and when the opportunity came, it merited thought. He did not have time to devote any mental processing cycles to Kentucky during his national championship bid, and he did what most highly successful people do: turned to his disciplined method of handling life’s challenges, and truly didn’t give it one iota of thought until after Florida cut down the nets. That he seemed to say as much using so-called “weasel words” during Kentucky’s courtship didn’t help the gastronomical status of the throngs of orange and blue-wearing faithful, but the fact is, he was shooting straight and telling the world exactly what he meant.

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