A Comprehensive History of Florida University Basketball Coaches
The University of Florida's men's basketball team has a rich and evolving history, dating back to its inception in 1915. From humble beginnings to national prominence, the program has seen its share of challenges and triumphs, largely shaped by the coaches who have led the team. This article explores the history of Florida University basketball coaches, highlighting key figures and their contributions to the program's growth.
Early Years and Initial Struggles
The University of Florida (UF) established its first varsity basketball team during the 1915-16 school year. The team was led by head football coach C. J. McCoy, who guided them to a 5-1 record against small colleges and local athletic clubs. After a hiatus during World War I, the program resumed in the 1919-20 school year, albeit without an officially designated coach.
During the early years, the basketball team struggled to gain traction. Until 1960, the university assigned coaches from other sports to lead the basketball team. This practice was common at most SEC schools apart from Kentucky well into the 1940s and 1950s. Coaches like head baseball coaches Brady Cowell, Ben Clemons, and Sam McAllister, head football coach Josh Cody, and football assistants Spurgeon Cherry and John Mauer all took turns leading the basketball team. Some of these coaches had prior experience in the sport; Cody had previously coached basketball at Clemson and Vanderbilt, while Mauer had coached at Kentucky and Tennessee.
The team also lacked a permanent home court with adequate seating capacity until the Florida Gymnasium opened in 1949. Before that, the basketball team had outgrown the small brick University Gymnasium by the mid-1920s, which had been designed to serve as a student recreation center and had very little spectator space. A larger wooden structure was built directly adjacent to the University Gym in 1928, which was intended to be a temporary home for the basketball team until the school could afford a more permanent structure. However, funds soon became scarce with the coming of the Great Depression.
Florida joined the Southeastern Conference (SEC) as one of its 13 charter members in December 1932. The Gators struggled to find success in basketball, finishing higher than fourth in the league on only four occasions over the program's first fifty years in the SEC (1933 to 1983).
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The Norm Sloan Era: A Turning Point
In 1960, the university hired Norm Sloan as Florida's first full-time head basketball coach. Sloan, who was 34 years old and had previously coached at The Citadel, was tasked with breathing life into the program. His first team achieved the Gators' first winning conference record in eight years, and his second team repeated the feat. During the 1960s, Sloan's Florida squads compiled a record of 85-63 in six seasons, including the Gators' first regular-season win over long-dominant Kentucky in SEC play.
Despite Sloan's success, the Gators did not receive a postseason tournament invitation during his tenure. Tournament fields were smaller at the time, and only conference champions were assured of NCAA bids.
Tommy Bartlett and the Program's First Postseason Appearance
Tommy Bartlett succeeded Sloan as head coach. In 1966-67, his first season, the Gators had their most successful season to date. The team finished with a record of 21-4, placing second in the SEC to Tennessee. Florida was ranked in the AP top 10 for the first time, earning a number 10 ranking on January 9, 1967, and then a number 8 ranking the next week on January 16. Florida notched the school's first 20-win campaign on the strength of winning their final eight games of the year by an average of 19 plus points per game. However, the SEC only permitted the league champion to play in the postseason at the time, and having finished second, they lost to league champion Tennessee twice and were not invited to a postseason tournament.
Bartlett's squads finished fifth and third in conference play the following seasons. Led by the program's first All-American in center Neal Walk and forward Andy Owens, the 1968-69 Gators received a bid to the 1969 National Invitation Tournament, marking the first postseason appearance in program history. After Walk and Owens went on to play professional basketball, Bartlett could not sustain the level of talent in recruiting, and team performance declined thereafter, leading to his dismissal after four straight losing campaigns.
John Lotz and the Move to the O'Connell Center
John Lotz, a respected assistant under North Carolina's Dean Smith, succeeded Bartlett in 1973-74. The modern era of Florida basketball began in 1980, when the team moved into their current home, the O'Connell Center. Despite being only 30 years old, Florida Gym had not aged well. By the mid-1970s, Florida was the only basketball program in the SEC without a modern arena.
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Norm Sloan's Return and the Sweet Sixteen Run
The new facility improved the basketball program in several ways, including helping to convince Norm Sloan to return to Gainesville after a successful 14-year tenure at North Carolina State. Sloan's second stint at Florida was easily the most successful period in program history until the late 1990s.
Sloan persuaded several top Florida high school basketball players-such as Gainesville's Vernon Maxwell and Brandon's Dwayne Schintzius-to stay in-state instead of attending schools with more basketball tradition. After four years of rebuilding, Sloan led the Gators to the 1984 NIT, which was only the second postseason appearance in school history. They would make the NIT again in 1985 and 1986, reaching the NIT semi-finals in 1986. In 1987, shooting guard Vernon Maxwell led the team to the school's first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance, advancing all the way to the Sweet 16.
However, after a drug scandal involving Maxwell and an NCAA investigation for various rules violations, Sloan and his coaching staff were forced to resign on October 31, 1989, just days before the start of the 1989-90 season. Former Tennessee coach Don DeVoe was brought in as the interim coach, but the defending SEC champions struggled to a 7-21 record.
In September 1990, the NCAA sentenced the program to two years' probation for numerous major violations dating back to 1985. Their 1987 and 1988 NCAA Tournament appearances were erased from the record books due to Maxwell being retroactively declared ineligible for secretly taking money from a sports agent, and Sloan was slapped with a five-year show-cause penalty that effectively ended his coaching career. The most severe penalty in the long run, however, was a reduction to 13 total scholarships in 1991-92 and 14 in 1992-93, which affected the program for several years.
Lon Kruger and the First Final Four Appearance
Lon Kruger, former head coach at Kansas State, took over the program before the 1990-91 season. Despite the probation he inherited, Kruger slowly brought the team to increased success and reached the NIT semifinals in his second year as coach. In 1993-94, the pieces fell into place for Florida to have their best season ever at that time. Behind Andrew DeClercq and Dametri Hill, the Gators went to their first Final Four following a dramatic victory over UConn. They lost to Duke in the national semifinal, 70-65. The next year, they returned to the NCAA tournament but were eliminated in the first round.
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Billy Donovan: A Dynasty is Born
Florida's Athletic Director, Jeremy Foley, hired 30-year-old Billy Donovan, then at Marshall, as Kruger's replacement. His recruiting prowess was evident early, bringing future NBA star Jason Williams with him from Marshall and having early recruiting classes with future NBA players Mike Miller, Udonis Haslem, and Matt Bonner, among others.
Donovan's first two seasons at Florida proved to be the two worst during his tenure at Florida. The Gators posted a two-year win-loss record of 27-32, missing postseason play entirely in his first season and losing in the first round of the NIT in his second season. In his third season, however, Donovan's Gators finished the season with an overall record of 22-9 and earned the No. 6 seed in the West Regional of the 1999 NCAA tournament. The Gators defeated Penn and Weber State to advance to the Sweet Sixteen in Phoenix, where they were upset by No.
Donovan took his Gators on a memorable run during his fourth season in Gainesville. The Gators finished the season 29-8, including winning a share of the SEC championship. In the 2000 SEC tournament, however, the Gators were upset in the second round by Auburn. Florida received the No. 5 seed in the East Regional of the 2000 NCAA tournament, though the Gators had to survive an upset bid by Butler on Mike Miller's buzzer-beating floater in overtime. They then swept through the region by beating Illinois, Duke, and Oklahoma State to reach the Final Four.
Over the next five years, the Gators went to the NCAA Tournament every year, but they found themselves upset victims five straight times in the first or second round. In the 2001 NCAA tournament, Florida received the No. 3 seed in the South Region. They defeated No. 14 Western Kentucky in the first round, but they were then upset by the No. The following year, in 2002, the Gators received the No. 5 seed in the Midwest Region of the 2002 NCAA tournament. They were knocked off in the first round by No. 12 seed Creighton. The 2003 Florida Gators finished the season 24-7 and received the No. 2 seed in the South Region of the 2003 NCAA tournament. The Gators easily defeated Sam Houston State in the first round but were then upset by No. 7 seed Michigan State in the second round. In 2004, the Gators were the No. 5 seed in the East Rutherford Regional of the 2003-2004 NCAA tournament but were upset in the first round by the No. The 2004-05 team had the distinction of being the first to garner an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, when it defeated Kentucky in the 2005 SEC tournament championship. The Gators subsequently received the No. 4 seed in the Syracuse Regional of the 2004-2005 NCAA tournament. They knocked off the No. 13 seed, Ohio, in the first round but lost to No.
The 2005-06 team began the season unranked and went on a 17-0 winning streak for the best start in school history, surprising many with a young (four sophomores and one junior) squad following the graduation of David Lee and the departures of Matt Walsh and Anthony Roberson to the NBA. The trio accounted for 60 percent of their offense in 2005. The Gators entered the 2006 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament as a No. 3 seed with a 27-6 record and ranked No. 10 by the AP. They beat No. 14 seed South Alabama and No. 11 seed Milwaukee to advance to the Minneapolis regional. There, the Gators defeated the No. 7 seed Georgetown Hoyas and upset the No.
Florida defeated the upstart George Mason Patriots, the No. 11 seed from the Washington, D.C. regional, by a score of 73-58 in the national semifinals in Indianapolis. The Gators returned all five starters from their 2006 championship team to begin the 2006-07 basketball season ranked as the preseason No. 1 in both major media polls, a first for the Gators. The Gators locked up the SEC Championship relatively early in the 2006-07 season and were in possession of a 24-2 record before going on a late-February 1-3 skid that mirrored their 0-3 run a year earlier. For the second season in a row, the losses in February would be their last.
Florida entered the 2007 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament as the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament, and they advanced to the Final Four after wins in the regional against No. 5 seed Butler and No. 3 seed Oregon. In a rematch of the 2006 title game, the Gators again eliminated the UCLA Bruins in the national semifinal. Florida defeated the Ohio State Buckeyes 84-75, in a rematch of a game they won 86-60 three months earlier, to become the first team since the 1991-92 Duke Blue Devils to win back-to-back national championships and the first college team ever to repeat as national champions with the same starting line-up. The University of Florida also has the distinction of being the only school in NCAA history to have won both the basketball and football national championships in the same year.
Donovan coached the Oklahoma City Thunder after his departure from UF in 2015 and led the franchise to five straight playoff appearances and a Western Conference Finals appearance in 2015-16. After his time with the Thunder he coached the Chicago Bulls.
Todd Golden: A New Era
Todd Golden became the Gators' head basketball coach in March 2022. Golden, born on July 7, 1985, is an Israeli-American. He played guard for the Saint Mary's Gaels from 2004 to 2008.
In 2022-23, Golden's first as head coach, Florida finished 8th in the SEC with a 9-9 record, including a 67-54 win over then #2 Tennessee, but ultimately finished with a losing 16-17 record after consecutive first-round exits in the SEC tournament and NIT to close the season. Florida amassed a 24-12 record in 2023-24 (11-7 in conference play), including a run to the championship game of the SEC Tournament, where they were ultimately beaten by Auburn. For their season they were awarded a seven seed in the 2024 NCAA tournament but lost their first-round game to Colorado, 102-100. This team's 24 wins were the most by a Gators team since 2017.
Golden picked up his first NCAA Tournament win when the No. 1 seed Gators eliminated No. 16 seed Norfolk State 95-69 on Friday night at the Lenovo Center. At 31-4, Florida has its sights set on bigger goals after earning a No. 1 seed for just the third time in program history and finished the season with a 36-4 record, winning the SEC and NCAA tournaments. This marked the Gators' first national title since 2007. Golden was named a finalist for Naismith Coach of the Year.
Pat Chambers
Pat Chambers enters his fourth season as the head men's basketball coach at Florida Gulf Coast University. He enters his 15th season as a head coach with an overall record of 231-226* (.505). In his second season at the helm, Chambers led the Eagles to a tie for sixth in the Atlantic Sun Conference regular season standings with an 8-8 league record. The Eagles would also pick up a 24-point win over ASUN champion Stetson Jan. 20, 2024. FGCU closed the regular season with three-straight league wins, topping Queens at home, then beating North Florida and Jacksonville on the road. Zach Anderson was named Third Team All-ASUN, with Rahmir Barno named to the ASUN All-Freshman Team. Strong results in the classroom were seen right off the jump in 2022-23 for Chambers as Isaiah Thompson was named to the ASUN All-Academic Team in addition to earning ASUN Third Team All-Conference honors. Thompson led the Eagles in scoring, averaging 14.9 points per contest, while handing out a team-best 103 assists. The Eagles would go 17-15 in Chambers' first year leading the program. Chambers spent nine years leading the Penn State (2011-20) program and two years as head coach at Boston University (2009-11). He has 190 career victories as a head coach in that span including four 20-plus win seasons. Part of his career as a head coach was highlighted by leading the Nittany Lions to a No.
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