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Florida State athletic director Stan Wilcox spoke to reporters after an athletics department board meeting Wednesday afternoon. Earlier in the day, FSU announced men's basketball coach Leonard Hamilton received a contract extension that would run through the 2018-19 season.
Here's a portion of what Wilcox had to say:
Q: Can you talk about what led up to the decision [of extending Leonard Hamilton’s contract]?
A: I think it is a few things. Leonard’s been, for this program, he’s been very good when you look at … we can talk about things on the court. He’s somebody that’s taken two programs – Miami and now Florida State – and built those programs to points where they were (conference) champions. I’d say we are right where that [2012 FSU team] was two years before they won the ACC Championship in that we’ve got some great freshmen this year, which were a Top 10 recruiting class last year, we’ve got another Top 10 recruiting class coming in this year, so those things to us ... and the number of years he’s been here, and the number of kids who have gone through his program and done very well academically and that have done very well off the field. He runs a clean program. He’s deserving of having that opportunity to get another ACC Championship and make a really deep run in the NCAA Tournament. We want him to have that chance.
Q: People will point to the team not making the NCAA Tournament three or four years in a row. How much of your decision is based on looking at the circumstances that kept those teams from making the tournament?
A: You look at the whole program. Where’s it at right now? Where’s it poised to go? Anytime you make a coaching change, your program is going to take a dip and I’m not interested in taking a dip. It’s poised right now based upon the kids we have in the program right now to make a really good run the next couple of years, and that’s based on looking at the entire program – what they’ve done on the recruiting trail, what they’ve done on the court this year – there have been a lot of successes. It’s about this team chemistry coming together, which it is. The timing for me was the right time because we want to stop the speculation. There’s no need to speculate – he’s going to be the guy that gets us to the ACC Championship and run deep into the tournament the next couple of years.
Q: That might be hard for some fans to appreciate with where the record is right now.
A: Yeah, you have to kind of be closer to the program, closer to the coaches and kids to really understand and see deeper into what’s the potential and where we are going. … We’re very excited and very confident that he is going to lead us back to where we need to be.
Q: How long have you been working on this extension?
A: I always go into a season with the understanding with the coach and President [John] Thrasher that we are going to have to monitor the season and that’s basically with every program … particularly when a coach is one or two years out from their contract. You’ve got to start looking and thinking where the program is at and where’s it going and what you want to do for the future. Figure out what’s best for the program and the kids and the coach. I can’t say that we started this particular date …
Q: Obviously the attendance wasn’t very good for the Georgia Tech game, and with these losses that might become a trend. How concerned are you about attendance going forward?
A: Attendance is always something that we look at. If we look at and compare last year to this year, I think you’ll see the attendance has increased when you take it in the aggregate. And that’s because when you look on the floor, there’s a lot of talent and exciting kids out there. And there will be more next year. I think a lot of people wanted to see this year be that year, but we’ve got a lot of freshmen, and in this league freshmen are not going to win all the games that you want to win. But we are poised to be in that position next year with the kids that we will have coming back and with the kids we’ll have coming in. So I expect that you will see an increase in the number of fans coming to the games.
Check back with Warchant for more on this story.
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