FSU Basketball: Why Leonard Hamilton is most impactful coach in school history

FSU basketball has now become a program that is a consistent winner thanks to the man who has done more to build a program that was at one point pathetic.

When the FSU basketball team walked off the court inside the Honda Center in Anaheim, California over a week and a half ago, they did so not as a team who just lost in the Sweet 16 round – but as a team who had made it to the NCAA Tournament for the seventh time in the last 11 seasons under head coach Leonard Hamilton.

It’s a stat that may not sound like much to those outside of the Seminoles program, but when you consider the fact that the Noles were a team who went to the tournament a whole 10 times in the first 61 seasons of action, what the program has become is not just a massive turnaround – it’s proof that Hamilton is indeed the most impactful coach there has been.

I’m not just talking about among the FSU basketball coaches who have led the team into action – I’m talking about among ANY coach there has been since the school begin fielding teams in the 1947-48 academic year.

Now, before some people lose their minds, I am not saying that Hamilton is the BEST coach in the history of the school – as someone who named their dog Bowden, I get that people are always going to hold on to that title for the legendary football coach and I totally understand that.

But, while the FSU football team was in an undoubted amount of disarray before Bowden took over, there was somewhat sustained success just the decade before and even a bowl appearance five seasons before while he also was going to get to be recruiting in the growing football hotbed of talent that is now arguably the best in the country.

FSU basketball was used as a pawn when the school joined the ACC – it was pretty much known that the Seminoles were meant to be bottom feeders in the sport in what has proven to be the top basketball conference consistently so that the football team could build up the ACC’s standing in that sport.

In the four seasons between the Seminoles’ tournament appearance in 1998 and Hamilton taking over, the Noles produced records of 13-17, 12-17, 9-21 and 12-17. After Hamilton had two losing seasons in his first three years, he has not had one since while taking a team that had finished outside the bottom of the ACC standings just twice before into one that is playing for titles.

It’s a program that is now being mentioned as a team that yearly can make a deep run into March Madness – something you couldn’t have imagined before – while Hamilton is constantly praised for doing so while having a program where players graduate and there is hardly ever an off-court issue regarding FSU basketball players.

FSU basketball may not win a national title while Hamilton is the head coach, but they are now a program taken seriously – and from where they were before, that shows the impact one man can have and why it’s more than any coach before.