BREAKING: FSU Basketball's Leonard Hamilton to step down after this season

UPDATE: Florida State has issued its statement on Leonard Hamilton’s resignation, confirming our earlier report:

Florida State University men’s basketball head coach Leonard Hamilton announced Monday that he is resigning as head coach effective at the end of the current season. FSU Vice President and Director of Athletics Michael Alford announced that the University will immediately begin a national search for Hamilton’s successor.

Hamilton is the winningest head coach in FSU history and the fifth-winningest head coach in the history of the Atlantic Coast Conference. The Seminoles are 13-9 overall this season, including a 4-7 record in ACC play. As head coach at FSU, Hamilton has compiled an overall record of 434-290 including a mark of 196-186 in ACC regular season games. He currently ranks 10th on the NCAA’s list of winningest active Division I coaches. Hamilton has led Florida State to 16 postseason appearances and 12 20-win seasons.

“I am deeply thankful for the tremendous support of our fans, alumni, and everyone associated with Florida State throughout my time here,” Hamilton said. “I am proud of the quality of the young men that it was my privilege to lead, for their faith in this program and in their belief in the philosophy that we tried to instill in them over the years. I have been blessed beyond words for the opportunity and the experience we’ve had here.

“My family and I truly love this place, this institution, and its people. I’m very fortunate to be able to have given this job my all with no regrets. Every head coach inherits a legacy and is obligated to leave the job better than they inherited it. I’m very proud of what we have been able to accomplish here over the last 23 seasons. We were a consistent contender, and we created success for our players during their time here. So many of them have gone on to be successful in life. I hope that it will be remembered as my legacy. I look forward to working with our administration during this transition and being as helpful as possible through this process.”

“Coach Hamilton’s personal character and integrity, and his leadership, set a tremendous standard for all of FSU Athletics,” Alford said. “Few people have been as important in building the positive reputation of Seminole Athletics. FSU’s stature as one of the leading brands in college sports has been possible, in part, to his leadership of our men’s basketball program. He steadily developed a culture of excellence that reflects his personal values: commitment to academic success, competitive success, community service, leadership, and ongoing personal excellence. The success of the men who have been part of our basketball program is proof of that legacy.”

“Leonard Hamilton is a beacon of class and integrity whose leadership serves as an indelible example that competitive excellence, academic achievement and community service are attainable at a leading public institution,” said FSU President Dr. Richard McCullough. “Coach Hamilton’s legacy extends far beyond Tallahassee and college basketball. He is one of the most respected and beloved ambassadors of FSU across the nation and in his profession.”

Hamilton has earned three national Coach of the Year honors and was named the conference Coach of the Year five times. He is the only person to earn multiple Coach of the Year honors in both the ACC and the Big East. In 37 seasons as a head coach at Oklahoma State, Miami (Fla.) and FSU, he earned 22 postseason bids, leading his teams to five Sweet 16 appearances, and three conference championships, including FSU’s first ACC Tournament title in 2012 and FSU’s first regular season ACC title in the 2019-20 season, and has an overall record of 634-500 (.559 winning percentage).

At FSU, Hamilton has developed 19 NBA Draft selections, including nine first-round picks led by No. 4 overall selections Patrick Williams in 2020 and Scottie Barnes in 2021. He has coached 24 All-ACC selections, 13 ACC All-Defensive Team selections, four ACC Sixth Man of the Year recipients and two ACC Defensive Players of the Year.

With an equal focus on academic and athletic achievement, nearly 97 percent of Hamilton’s players who completed their eligibility earned their degrees and 20 student-athletes were named to the All-ACC Academic Team. His team produced a program-record 3.16 grade-point average in the spring of 2023 highlighted by 10 individual GPAs of at least 3.0.

“I’m excited for the future of men’s basketball at Florida State,” Alford said. “Thanks to Coach Hamilton’s excellent stewardship and leadership, it has been proven that Florida State can be a contender in the ACC and nationally. I’m looking forward to continuing to build on what he has accomplished here as we identify the next leader of our program.”

FIRST REPORT

The end of an era has arrived for Florida State men’s basketball.

The university is set to announce on Monday afternoon that head coach Leonard Hamilton will resign from his post after 23 years at the school. The announcement is expected to come after Hamilton speaks with his team in a 3 p.m. meeting.

Hamilton, who was in the final year of his contract, will coach out the rest of the season for the Seminoles before stepping down. He also has agreed to help FSU with the transition process to a new head coach and could remain with the program in a yet-to-be-determined capacity.

Florida State’s last regular-season game of the 2024-2025 season will be on March 8 at home against SMU. The Mustangs, coincidentally, are coached by former Hamilton assistant coach Andy Enfield.

Hamilton will leave as the fifth all-time winningest coach in ACC history. Only Mike Krzyzewski, Dean Smith, Roy Williams and Gary Williams won more conference games than Hamilton, who currently has 196 ACC wins and 656 overall in his career.

The North Carolina native took over the Florida State program in the 2002-03 season and had two different runs of success. The first came from 2009-2012, when his program went to four straight NCAA Tournaments, earned a Sweet 16 berth and won the school’s first-ever ACC Tournament championship in 2012.

After a lull from 2013-2016, Hamilton brought the Seminoles back into the national spotlight. His team again went to four straight NCAA Tournaments (it would have been five in a row if not for the COVID stoppage of 2020) and advanced to the Sweet 16 in 2018, 2019 and 2021. The 2019 Florida State team reached the Elite 8.

And the 2020 team, which didn’t get to compete in the postseason, was 26-5 when the season was cancelled and had won the ACC regular-season title for the first in program history. The Seminoles were ranked in the Top 5 nationally.

The last four years, however, have not been close to that same standard, and his current Florida State team is currently on a four-game losing streak, culminating with a one-point loss in the final seconds at Boston College on Saturday.

It has long been speculated that because he was on the last year of a contract and no extension had been announced that this would indeed be the last season for the 76-year-old Hamilton.

Because of the four-game losing streak, and in the midst of another March Madness-less season, it seemed inevitable that the ending would be coming soon for Hamilton’s tenure.

Now we know for sure. The end of an era has arrived for Florida State basketball.

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