Florida fired their women’s basketball coach, Kelly Rae Finley, on Monday after the Gators missed the NCAA Tournament for the fourth consecutive year. Now, the Gators are looking for a capable head coach who can take the program back to postseason glory once again.
The Gators have three McDonald’s All-Americans on the roster — Liv McGill, Me’Arah O’Neal, and Laila Reynolds. Talent was never a problem; finding the right coach to develop and deploy it is. So, here are five names Florida could look at for the role of the Gators’ next head coach.
#5 Amanda Butler
Amanda Butler went 190-136 in 10 seasons at Florida, leading the Gators to four trips to the NCAA Tournament. She knows the ins and outs of the program and the challenges of winning the SEC.
Butler is currently in her second year as an assistant on Jeff Walz’s coaching staff at Louisville. However, she has an impressive resume with head coaching experience at different programs across 18 seasons. She won 40 games in two seasons at Charlotte before joining Florida. At Clemson, she had one postseason appearance in six seasons before being fired. Butler has over 300 career wins and the institutional knowledge to hit the ground running.
#4 Aaron Roussell
Aaron Roussell has 21 years of head coaching experience with a career winning percentage of .696 and an overall record of 434-186. Roussell guided Richmond to consecutive Atlantic 10 regular-season titles for the first time in program history while also securing the program’s first NCAA Tournament victory in 2026.
He was named the Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year for the second straight season and the Kathy Delaney-Smith Mid-Major Coach of the Year. With a proven track record of building programs from scratch, this is exactly what Florida needs.
#3 Carly Thibault-DuDonis
Carly Thibault-DuDonis comes from coaching royalty and has a resume to prove her worth. She has lifted the Fairfield University women’s basketball program to new heights in just three seasons as the head coach. She led the Stags to consecutive MAAC Championships and NCAA Tournament appearances for the first time in program history. Fairfield posted a 59-7 overall record during their last two MAAC Championship seasons, the second-best winning percentage in the country over that period.
As an assistant at Mississippi State, Thibault-DuDonis had back-to-back national championship runs and developed multiple Big Ten players at Minnesota. Though she is signed to a contract extension with Fairfield till the 2030-31 season, a Power Four job could definitely entice her for the gig at Florida.
#2: Vanessa Blair-Lewis
Vanessa Blair-Lewis can be credited with one of the most remarkable rebuilds in the country. She transformed George Mason from a winless team to Atlantic 10 champions. From winning just three total games in the 2020-21 season, she led George Mason to the NCAA Tournament in just four seasons. Blair-Lewis has won more than 400 games and captured a championship at extremely rare places.
With 27 years of experience under her belt, Blair-Lewis is the longest tenured Black female head coach in Division I women’s college basketball. From rebuilding programs at Mount St. Mary’s and Bethune-Cookman to doing it again at George Mason, her credentials prove suitable for the Gators’ head coaching role.
#1: Yolett McPhee-McCuin (Coach Yo)
Yolett McPhee-McCuin is the most plausible candidate to take up the role of head coach at Florida. She led Jacksonville to win the 2016 ASUN Tournament and advance to the NCAA Tournament. She is currently the head coach of Ole Miss, and she led the Rebels to their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2007 in the 2021-22 season.
She has prior SEC experience, awareness of the recruiting landscape, and what it takes to win at the highest level. With her proven credentials, she could take up the job at Gainsville quite smoothly with a roster full of blue-chip talent ready to take off.
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