DAILY REPORT : Arkansas Junior Forward Leaving for NBA

Center Darnell Robinson is giving up his final year of eligibility at Arkansas to enter the NBA draft.

“I gave as much to the University of Arkansas as I possibly could,” Robinson, who is 6 feet 11, said in Fayetteville, Ark. “I wish the Razorbacks nothing but success in the future.”

Robinson sat out 13 games this year because of a broken bone in his foot, but averaged 12.7 points and seven rebounds per game. He and Lee Wilson were co-captains on the Razorback team that finished 20-13 and advanced to the third round of the NCAA tournament.

“We appreciate the three seasons Darnell gave us,” Coach Nolan Richardson said. “Injuries prevented him from ever giving us a full season, but we are proud he chose Arkansas out of all the schools he could have attended.”

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Billy Donovan, the basketball coach at Marshall who played for Rick Pitino at Providence College and was an assistant to him at Kentucky, will be named coach at Florida today, according to two Florida newspapers.

Athletic Director Jeremy Foley was in Huntington, W.Va., Monday night. A source close to the university said he returned to Gainesville, Fla., with Donovan.

Donovan will sign a five-year contract, that sources said would be worth about $400,000 annually. He had two years left on a contract at Marshall, where he was paid a little more than $100,000 per year.

Donovan will bring assistants Anthony Grant, Donnie Jones and John Pelphrey, The Gainesville Sun reported.

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Murry Bartow, son of retiring Alabama-Birmingham coach Gene Bartow, took over when his father stepped aside after nearly 19 years as the school’s only basketball coach.

Gene Bartow will remain as athletic director at least through October 1997, when his contract runs out.

The elder Bartow acknowledged there could be criticism of the hiring because there was no formal search, and he could have difficulty firing Murray, 34, who received what officials would describe only as a “multi-year” contract.

Murray Bartow was a seven-year assistant under his father.

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Jimmy Collins, passed over for the Illinois coaching job when Lou Henson retired, is the new basketball coach at Illinois-Chicago.

Collins, 48, replaces Bob Hallberg, whose record was 133-129 in nine years with Illinois-Chicago, including 10-18 last season. He was reassigned to an administrative job.

Collins has been an Illinois assistant and recruiter since 1983. When Henson retired, he recommended that Collins replace him. But Illini Athletic Director Ron Guenther selected Florida’s Lon Kruger.

Collins is especially popular in the Chicago Public League, and the Illini’s decision to hire Kruger angered many of the league’s coaches, who threatened to try to keep their players from attending Illinois.

Among the city players Collins recruited for the Illini were Nick Anderson, Deon Thomas and Kiwane Garris.

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The Great Eight, hoping to improve its standing among early season basketball tournaments, will move to the United Center in Chicago for a five-year run beginning in December, it was announced.

The event, first held in 1994, was created to bring together the eight regional finalists of the previous season’s NCAA tournament.

But timing and other factors have kept some top teams from participating in the previous Great Eight tournaments, which have been held at The Palace in Auburn Hills, Mich.

The 1996 event will be held Dec. 3-4.