Hamilton named to Achieving Coach Excellence honor roll
Leonard Hamilton, the 2020 ACC Coach of the Year, has been named to the College Basketball Coaching Honor Roll by Achieving Coaching Excellence.
The Coaching Honor Roll recognizes leaders in women’s and men’s college basketball that have demonstrated ideals of coaching excellence that include on and off the court performance, community involvement, and serving as champions for college basketball, their coaching peers and the coaching profession.
In leading the Seminoles to their first ACC regular season championship in school history, the team finished the year with a 26-5 record that includes a 16-4 mark in conference play. The 26 wins marked a school record for wins in a regular season while the 16 ACC wins is a new school record for ACC wins in a season. Florida State led the ACC with its 16 wins and tied for the conference lead with its 16 ACC wins.
Coach Leonard Hamilton led the Seminoles to a school record 26-win season that led to winning the ACC regular season championship.
Photo by St. Clair Murraine
Florida State won the regular season ACC Championship for the first time in school history after being picked to finish fifth in the conference standings at ACC Basketball Media Day on Oct. 8, 2019 in Charlotte. The Seminoles defeated 14 ACC opponents in winning 16 ACC games. Florida State earned the coveted double-bye in the ACC Tournament. The Seminoles are one of only three teams (Florida State, Duke, Virginia) to have earned the double bye in the ACC Tournament in both of the last two seasons. Florida State has finished in fourth place or better in three of the last four seasons (2nd in 2017, 4th in 2019 and 1st in 2020).
Florida State is the third winningest program in the ACC in the last two seasons with a 55-14 overall record.
Florida State was tied for the ACC lead in 2020 with four victories over nationally ranked teams – the Seminoles defeated No. 6 Florida (November 10), No. 17 Tennessee (November 29), No. 7 Louisville (January 4) and No. 11 Louisville (February 24). The Seminoles defeated Florida, who began the season ranked No. 6 nationally, for the school-record sixth consecutive season.
Florida State finished the 2020 season ranked No 4 Nationally by the Associated Press – the highest final national ranking in school history after beginning the season unranked by both major polls. The Seminoles have been ranked in the top-10 of the final AP Poll (No. 4 in 2019-20 and No. 10 in 2018-19) in two consecutive seasons for the first time in school history. Florida State’s national ranking of No. 4 in the final week of the season was the second highest national ranking in school history and highest in 50 years. The Seminoles were ranked No. 2 in the pre-season poll and during the first two weeks of the regular season to begin the 1972-73 season.
Florida State was undefeated at home (16-0) in the Donald L. Tucker Center — the only undefeated team at home in the ACC. The Seminoles have been undefeated at home twice in the last three seasons (15-0 in 2018 and 16-0 in 2020). Florida State has won 23 consecutive games played in the Donald L. Tucker Center – the longest home winning streak in the last six years in the ACC. Florida State has won 17 consecutive ACC home games – the 11th longest ACC home winning streak in ACC history.
Achieving Coaching Excellence Men’s Basketball Honor Roll: Leonard Hamilton, Florida State; Anthony Grant, Dayton; Mike Jones, Radford; James Jones, Yale; Willie Jones, North Carolina A&T; Ritchie McKay, Liberty; LeVelle Moton, North Carolina Central; Lamont Paris, Tennessee Chattanooga; Byron Smith, Prairie View A&M; Damon Stoudamire, Pacific; Darrell Walker, Arkansas Little Rock; and Alfred Williams, Xavier (La.)
