By: Robert Craft

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

Florida State men’s basketball coach Leonard Hamilton is resigning after the Seminoles’ season, ending one of the winningest tenures in ACC history.

Hamilton’s 434 wins over 22+ seasons are the most in program history and the fifth ever in ACC records.

The only four ahead of Hamilton: Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, North Carolina’s Dean Smith and Roy Williams and Maryland’s Gary Williams.

Hamilton, 76, took over the Seminoles in March 2002 after stints as the head coach at Miami, Oklahoma State and the Washington Wizards.

His Florida State career includes a dozen 20-win seasons, eight NCAA Tournament appearances and three ACC coach of the year awards.

He peaked late in his tenure. His 2018 team went to the Elite Eight. The next season, Hamilton led the Seminoles to a school-record 29 games and the Sweet 16 — only the second time ever that Florida State had back-to-back Tournament runs that deep.

Hamilton’s 2020 team was even better; they won the ACC’s regular season title and, at 26-5, was expected to be a national championship contender before March Madness was canceled due to COVID-19.

The program has slipped since 2020. The Seminoles are 56-62 since the start of the 2021-22 season.

On Saturday, Florida State blew an 8-point lead in the final minute to lose 77-76 at Boston College. It was the Eagles’ second conference victory and dropped Florida State to 13-9 overall (4-7 ACC).

University president Richard McCullough called Hamilton “one of the most respected and beloved ambassadors of FSU.”

Florida State athletic director Michael Alford said, “Coach Hamilton’s personal character and integrity, and his leadership, set a tremendous standard for all of FSU Athletics 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.”

In late December, six former players sued Hamilton in Leon County circuit court, saying he failed to fulfill $250,000 in promised name, image and likeness money per player. Hamilton has not yet filed a response in court.

With Hamilton’s pending resignation, the ACC’s old guard is officially gone.

Add Hamilton — the oldest active coach in men’s college basketball — to the storied list of coaches who have retired from the ACC since the end of the 2020-21 season: Roy Williams, Krzyzewski, Jim Boeheim, Mike Brey, Tony Bennett, and Jim Larrañaga. That doesn’t even include Hall of Famer Rick Pitino, who was fired by Louisville a month before the start of the 2017-18 season.

Hamilton’s departure means that the longest-tenured coach in the league is now Clemson’s Brad Brownell, who is midway through his 15th season with the Tigers. Is Hamilton’s retirement the nail in the coffin for how College Basketball used to be? Is this the dawn of a new era?

While Hamilton never reached the Final Four in 37 seasons as a head coach, he did take the Seminoles to only their third Elite Eight in program history, while also establishing Tallahassee as a legitimate professional breeding ground.

From 2016 to 2021, Hamilton had six players selected in the first round of the NBA Draft, including top-10 selections Jonathan Isaac (No. 6 in 2017), Patrick Williams (No. 4 in 2020), and Scottie Barnes (No. 4 in 2021).

This announcement leaves a lot of questions that will hopefully be answered soon.