GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Florida fired women’s basketball coach Kelly Rae Finley on Monday with the Gators poised to miss the NCAA Tournament for the fourth consecutive year.
Finley had one year remaining on a contract that paid her about $700,000 annually. She is entitled to her remaining base salary, $450,000, to be paid over regular installments until April 15, 2027.
The 40-year-old Finley went 93-75 in five seasons in Gainesville, including 30-50 in Southeastern Conference play. She put together one of the program’s best collections of talent in recent years, with Liv McGill, Me’Arah O’Neal and Laila Reynolds giving the team three McDonald’s All-Americans in its starting lineup.
But the trio was unable to deliver enough wins in one of the country’s deepest leagues.
Florida (18-15, 5-11 SEC) lost by 18 points to seventh-ranked Oklahoma in the second round of the SEC Tournament on Thursday. The Gators were outscored 27-7 in the third quarter, the latest game in which they got outplayed in the second half.
“We’re the youngest team in the conference, and we showed up every single night to compete, and I would expect nothing else,” Finley said after the loss. “We’re as good as we’ve been on both sides of the ball in the last eight years. … If given the opportunity for whatever is next, man, they’re going to shine.”
Women’s basketball is the only program of the 19 on Florida’s campus that has never won a conference title. And the next coach will try to reverse the trend at a time when the Gators seem reluctant to funnel as much money as SEC heavyweights LSU and South Carolina into a program that has provided little, if any, return on investment for decades.
Finley took over a program in disarray in 2021, one reeling from Cam Newbauer’s resignation amid allegations he verbally abused players and staff members. The Gators made the NCAA Tournament in Finley’s interim season, but her tenure has been mostly downhill since despite an uptick in talent.
Florida looked competent, even competitive, at times. But there was usually a half, a quarter or a stretch in which little went right. And Finley seemingly did little to spark interest in the program; Florida’s average home attendance (1,895) ranked last in the SEC by a significant margin this season.
The Gators enjoyed mild success over the years but haven’t advanced past the second round of the NCAAs since Carol Ross coached the team in 1998. They tried different paths since: hiring national championship-winning coach Carolyn Peck in 2002 and bringing back alumna Amanda Butler in 2007. Athletic director Scott Stricklin hired Newbauer over Becky Hammon in 2017.
None of them led Florida to national prominence while other women’s programs at Florida flourished, including gymnastics, lacrosse, soccer, softball, tennis, track and field, and volleyball.
And there has been an opportunity for growth in women’s hoops, with traditional SEC powers Georgia and Tennessee giving way in recent years to LSU, Kentucky, Mississippi State and South Carolina. The addition of Oklahoma and Texas in 2024 only pushed Florida even further down the league ladder.
Now, the next coach will try to accomplish what Finley failed to do: build a consistent winner in Gainesville.
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