COLUMBIA, MO. • Florida State basketball coach Leonard Hamilton has history with Missouri and he has history with Cuonzo Martin. Those worlds collide Friday in Nashville when Hamilton’s Seminoles (20-11) meet Martin’s Tigers (20-12) in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Hamilton, 69, is in his 16th season at FSU and guiding his sixth Seminoles team into the Big Dance. In 30 years as a Division I head coach at Oklahoma State, Miami and Florida State, Hamilton has won 524 games, which ranks 14th among active coaches in this year’s tournament.
And, yes, Hamilton’s been thrown out of the Hearnes Center, tossed from a game in 1988 while coaching against Norm Stewart.