FSU Basketball: Leonard Hamilton Deserves More Love For Success
By Jason Parker
FSU basketball is having one of the best seasons in program history – yet head coach Leonard Hamilton is not getting near the national love he should.
With six games left in the 2016-17 regular season, FSU basketball is on the verge of making program history. With a 21-4 record entering this weekend, if the Seminoles can at least split the final contests this season, they will tied the program record for most regular season wins with the 1971-72 team that played for the national title.
The next time the ‘Noles get a win this season – possibly Saturday night when they go for the season sweep over Notre Dame – it will also be a historical moment for head coach Leonard Hamilton, who sits one win shy of 300 for his time at Florida State and 500 for his career.
In his 15th season in Tallahassee, Hamilton has turned a program that – even among some FSU alumni and fans – was forgotten and a bottom feeder in the ACC to one of the winningest programs in college basketball’s best conference over the last decade. Averaging 20 wins a season while playing in this conference is something that should be praised.
Florida State Seminoles Basketball
At 21-4 this season with a decent chance to win the ACC and make the deepest tournament run since reaching the Elite Eight in the 1992-93 season, Hamilton should be getting national exposure like crazy and be on every list for Coach of The Year. Yet, it seems as if the man who revitalized FSU basketball is getting no where near the national love he should.
Hamilton has suffered just two losing seasons since arriving in Tallahassee – the last one coming in 2004-05 with some bad losses I don’t want to remember – and will be taking the Seminoles to their 12th postseason appearance since he took over. 80 percent of the time, FSU basketball has played past the ACC Tournament – after going to just 13 post season tournaments in the previous 55 seasons of the program.
Much of the knock on Hamilton is that only four of those postseason trips have been to the NCAA Tournament – a four year streak that included two one and dones and one Sweet Sixteen appearance. Having not been to the Big Dance in five seasons has deluded in the eyes of many all the good Hamilton did to get FSU basketball back to respectability.
The national runner up team in 1972, which finished the season 28-5 with the five point loss in the title game to UCLA, is the bench mark for the Seminoles as the best season in program history. That season, head coach Hugh Durham didn’t get nearly the national acclaim he should have. One can only hope that if the ‘Noles make a deep run this year, that isn’t what happens for Coach Ham.