FSU basketball head coach Leonard Hamilton will not return to FSU after the 2024-25 season concludes.
The announcement came Monday afternoon, a few days after FSU blew a double-digit lead in the second half against a below .500 Boston College team on the road.
Our Taylor Devers wrote why it was time to make a decision less than 24 hours ago.
It's not a surprise since Hamilton was in the final year of his contract, and an extension hadn't been announced. Some fans worried Hamilton would return, but the results of the last few games (four consecutive losses) and a pending lawsuit filed a few weeks ago by a handful of players may have expedited the move.
FSU’s all-time winningest basketball coach, Leonard Hamilton, is resigning as head coach at the end of the season. He will address the transition during his postgame media availability after tomorrow night’s matchup with Notre Dame.
— Florida State Men’s Basketball (@FSUHoops) February 3, 2025
🔗: https://t.co/ccCDs45L0k pic.twitter.com/fx5PpMRCZO
It allows FSU to get the search for its new coach underway a little early while allowing Hamilton to get the flowers he deserves. Listen, FSU will always be a football school first, but Leonard Hamilton's basketball teams filled a HUGE void for a few years when the football team was awful.
Hamilton won the ACC Coach of the Year three times, the ACC Tournament in 2012, and the ACC regular-season in 2020. He is 456–290 in 23 seasons at FSU and is the all-time winningest coach in FSU basketball history.
The 2020 season saw FSU among the heavy favorites to potentially win its first national title in basketball. However, the COVID-19 pandemic eliminated that opportunity.
They finished that season 26-5 and saw a swift decline in the coming years and have not made the NCAA Tournament since the 2020-21 season:
- 18-7 in 2020-21
- 17-14 in 2021-22
- 9-23 in 2022-23
- 17-16 in 2023-24
The Noles are 13-9 with nine regulars season games remaining this season. The only chance they have to make it to the NCAA Tournament is by winning the ACC Tournament.
Hamilton doesn't look it, but he'll be 77 years old later this year. It wouldn't make sense to give him another contract with how the team has performed over the past few seasons. Honestly, he's lucky he wasn't fired after the 2022-23 season and was given the opportunity to get the program back to some respectability.
It'll be interesting to see how FSU Athletic Director Michael Alford handles the hire. Hamilton is one of the last remaining coaches with a long tenure in the ACC to leave, following Roy Williams, Jim Boeheim, Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Larranaga, and Tony Bennett in recent years.