The most successful coach in Florida State history, Leonard Hamilton is the Seminoles’ all-time winningest coach and is the fifth all-time winningest coach in ACC history.

He became the Seminoles’ winningest coach as Florida State defeated Pittsburgh on March 7, 2015 and became the fifth all-time winningest coach in ACC history as he guided the Seminoles past Syracuse on February 15, 2020. He is the fifth winningest all-time coach in ACC history with 404 total wins and 203 ACC wins (ACC regular season and ACC Tournament games).

Hamilton won his 400th game at Florida State and his 600th overall in Florida State’s 75-64 win over Georgia Tech on January 7, 2021, at the Donald L. Tucker Center.

In 2020, he led Florida State to the first ACC Regular Season Championship in school history.  The Seminoles finished ACC play with a 16-4 record — the 16 wins established a school record for ACC wins in a season. The Seminoles finished the 2020 season ranked No. 4 in the Associated Press poll – the highest final national ranking in school history.  Hamilton was named the ACC Coach of the Year in 2020 for the third time in his career.

In 2019, he guided the Seminoles to a school-record 29 victories. The Seminoles’ 2019 team also defeated six nationally ranked teams, advanced to the ACC Tournament Championship game and to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. Coupled with the Seminoles’ appearance in the Elite Eight of the 2018 NCAA Tournament, the 2019 season marked the second time in school history the Seminoles had advanced to at least the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament in consecutive seasons.

In 2018, Florida State advanced to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament for the first time under Hamilton and for only the third time in school history.  The Seminoles finished with a 23-12 record, a 9-9 mark in ACC play, won the Jamaica Classic and played in the NCAA Tournament for the second consecutive season and for the sixth time in that 10-year period.  Florida State was one of two ACC teams which advanced to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament, defeated a near school-record six nationally ranked teams and three teams seeded higher than them in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history.

Florida State is one of only three ACC Teams that has won at least 20 games in a season 12 times in the last 17 years.

Under Hamilton, the Seminoles have won at least 20 games in 12 of his 21 years and have advanced to the postseason in 16 of his 21 seasons at Florida State.  Hamilton is the first coach to lead Florida State to nine consecutive postseason appearances as the Seminoles participated in the 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 NCAA Tournaments and played in the NIT in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2013 and 2014.  

Hamilton has earned three National Coach of the Year awards, three Atlantic Coast Conference Coach of the Year awards, two Big East Coach of the Year awards, has led his teams to nine NCAA Tournament appearances and 20 postseason appearances, to the 2020 ACC Championship, to the 2012 ACC Championship and to the 1978 National Championship (as an assistant coach at Kentucky).  He is the only person to earn Coach of the Year honors multiple times in both the ACC and the Big East.  He was named the Clarence “Big House” Gaines National Coach of the Year in 2018 by the National Sports Media Association.

Hamilton led the Seminoles to the first ACC basketball championship in school history in 2012, is among the leaders in the ACC and the nation in recruiting and coaching NBA talent, has made appearing in the NCAA Tournament an expected part of the Seminoles’ schedule each season, and developed the program into one of the nation’s tougher teams to prepare for.