The Florida Gators have announced they will be moving on from women’s basketball coach Kelly Rae Finley and are looking for a new coach heading into the offseason. Florida finished the 2025-26 campaign 18-15, with a 5-11 record in conference. The Gators lost to Oklahoma in the SEC Tournament on Thursday to end their season.
The Finley Era didn’t start under great circumstances, but even when given time, she ended up in the same place almost everyone in Gainesville has, and the grand question as Stricklin gets ready to hire his third women’s basketball coach as Florida’s AD is whether or not he can get it right this time around.
Florida fires women’s basketball coach Kelly Rae Finley
Finley took over the program after Cameron Newbauer resigned in July of 2021 for “personal reasons.” It then came out in September of 2021 that Newbauer was accused of toxicity and abuse, and it didn’t help that it felt like Florida tried to cover that up.
So, given a backdrop of chaos, Finley had a great first season in charge and led Florida to an NCAA Tournament bid in 2022.
But the ensuing four seasons all played out the same, where Florida could beat up on Quad 4 teams with ease but was severely outclassed within the SEC. The Gators went 5-11 in SEC play in 2023, 2024, 2025, and again in 2026.
But Finley’s tenure with Florida is almost perfectly in line with the overall history of the program. Finley’s winning percentage during her five years in charge was .554. Florida’s all-time winning percentage as a program since 1981 is .560.
The Gators have made the Sweet 16 just twice in program history (1997 and 1998). Finley’s 21 wins in 2022 is the only 20-win season the program has had in the past decade.
And so the question for Stricklin as he embarks on a search for a new coach is the age-old question of which comes first? The chicken or the egg?
Because women’s basketball at Florida has always struggled not just on the court but also in the stands. The Gainesville Sun did a deep dive last week and found that Florida ranked dead last in the SEC in women’s basketball attendance with an average of 1,895 fans per game.
Their same deep dive also found that Florida spent the least amount of money on women’s basketball within the SEC, spending half of what schools like LSU, South Carolina, and Tennessee do.
So it’s a case where the team is bad in part because of funding. But does Florida have an incentive to fund it when attendance is dead last in the conference? But would attendance improve if the team were actually competitive, thus generating more money and interest towards the program?
That’s all questions for Stircklin to figure out. Until those questions get answered, the program continues to feel like a hamster on the wheel.