Florida fires women’s basketball head coach Kelly Rae Finley
By Andrew Olson
Published:
Florida has dismissed women’s basketball head coach Kelly Rae Finley after 4 seasons as head coach.
Finley had been with the program since 2017. She served as interim head coach during the 2021-22 season before being named the full-time head coach.
“We are grateful for Coach Finley’s commitment to the program and the student-athletes during her time in Gainesville and wish her and her family the very best moving forward,” Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin said in a program release.
Florida posted a 93-75 overall record in Finley’s tenure, but just a 30-50 mark in SEC play.
“I’d like to thank the administration for entrusting me with the development of Florida’s women’s basketball team over these last four-plus seasons,” said Finley. “I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to work with a number of amazing coaches, support staff and boosters during my time in Gainesville who believed in what we were doing to put Florida women’s basketball back on the map.
“I’m immensely proud of the work we put in and the things we accomplished together. But I’m most proud of our players. As much as college athletics is about wins and losses, for me it is also about developing young women. The opportunity to work with such an amazing group of players over the years here in Florida has been an absolute joy, and I’m looking forward to seeing the impact this current group of Gators will have moving forward both as amazing athletes on the court, and as high-character people throughout the rest of their lives.”
Finley, 40, guided the Gators to the NCAA Tournament in 2022. Florida made the WNIT in each of the 3 seasons that followed. UF went 18-15 overall in 2025-26 with a 5-11 record in regular-season conference play.
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
