Carlin Hartman enters his third season as associate head coach in 2024-25. Hartman has 25 years of experience at the collegiate level, helping the Gators back to the NCAA Tournament in 2024. UF posted 24 wins in 2023-24, its most since 2016-17, and advanced to the SEC Tournament championship game for the first time since 2014.
The Gators tallied four top-25 wins in 2023-24 and had their highest-scoring team in program history with 85.7 points per game, ranking in the top 10 nationally in scoring offense, rebounds per game, offensive rebounds per game and offensive rebounding percentage.
Florida’s overtime win at 10th-ranked Kentucky marked Florida’s first top-10 road win since 2003 and the 12th all-time win at Kentucky. Florida backed up the win at Kentucky with a home victory over #12 Auburn, an 81-65 rout that UF led by as many as 29. The Gators closed their home season in style with a 105-87 win vs. #16 Alabama, the most points UF has ever scored in regulation vs. a ranked opponent. Just 10 days later, Florida blitzed 18th-ranked Alabama, 102-88, in the SEC Tournament quarterfinals.
In UF’s first SEC Tournament semifinal since 2019, the Gators battled back from 18 points down to defeat Texas A&M, marking the fifth-largest comeback in team history and earning the first trip to the SEC Tournament championship game since 2014.
The Gators’ success grew directly out of the coaching staff’s evaluation and recruiting efforts in 2023, as four incoming transfers were regular starters, including three All-SEC players in Walter Clayton Jr., Zyon Pullin and Tyrese Samuel along with Micah Handlogten, who was one of the nation’s top offensive rebounders. Unranked freshmen Alex Condon and Thomas Haugh provided valuable frontcourt minutes, with Condon earning SEC All-Freshman recognition.
Clayton and Pullin became Florida’s first duo of All-SEC guards in 11 years and Florida’s #8 scoring duo over the past 50 seasons. Clayton, Pullin and Samuel became the first trio in Florida history to all score 500 points in a season. Samuel, who earned AP All-SEC honors, posted 11 double-doubles, the most by a Gator since Al Horford’s 16 in 2006-07. Handlogten (108) and Samuel (102) put up the #2 and #3 offensive rebounding totals in school history, respectively, and became the first Florida teammates to post 100 offensive rebounds in a season.
Seven different players combined for 38 total 20-point performances, including eight games with multiple 20-point scorers and one game (the road win at Kentucky) with three 20-point scorers. Those eight games with multiple 20-point scorers match Florida’s total such games over the previous six seasons.
Pullin, who earned first-team All-SEC honors, posted a Florida-record 3.77 assist-to-turnover ratio, a number that also ranked #1 among all SEC players during the 2000s.
Clayton earned SEC All-Tournament Team honors, averaging 18.5 points as the Gators played four games in four days. The Lake Wales native followed that up with 33 points in the NCAA Tournament game vs. Colorado, including 26 in the second half and the Gators’ final 16 points of the game.
Samuel stuffed the stat sheet with 22 points, 13 rebounds and four blocked shots in the win at Kentucky, becoming the first player in the nation since Tim Duncan to post that line in a top-10 road win.
Alex Condon, UF’s leading shot-blocker, also became the first Gator in the 2000s to grab 10 offensive rebounds in a game (at Ole Miss) and became the first Florida freshman in the 2000s to post multiple 15-rebound games.
In Hartman’s first season at Florida, the Gators notched a win vs. #2 Tennessee, matching the highest-ranked win both in regular season win and at home win in Florida history. The Gators also topped #20 Missouri and defeated rival Florida State in Tallahassee, as the Gators staged a 19-point comeback – fourth-largest in program history – to earn the team’s first road win in the series since 2012.
Under Hartman’s tutelage, Colin Castleton earned first-team All-SEC and All-Defensive Team honors and was named USA Today’s SEC Defensive Player of the Year. Castleton set a Florida record and ranked third in the nation with 3.0 blocked shots per game before suffering a season-ending broken hand on Feb. 15. In addition, Riley Kugel earned SEC All-Freshman honors, as his 12.6 points per game in SEC play marked the most by a Gator freshman in more than a decade (Bradley Beal, 2011-12).
The Gators found an identity on the defensive side of the ball, climbing into the top 10 in KenPom’s defensive efficiency ratings during the course of the season prior to Castleton’s injury. The Gators’ 5.18 blocked shots per game ranked eighth in the nation.
Prior to UF, Hartman helped UNLV to an 18-win season in 2021-22, including double-digit conference victories. The Rebels boasted a pair of All-Mountain West performers this season as Bryce Hamilton earned first-team honors and Royce Hamm Jr. received honorable mention recognition, while Donovan Williams was named MWC Sixth Man of the Year. In 2022, he was invited to the 2022 coaches’ consortium at the Final Four for a second time (also 2019). Hartman was also named to the Advancement of Blacks in Sports (ABIS) Men’s Basketball Coaches 2022 Watch List in March.
Silver Waves Media has twice named Hartman one of the top 50 impactful high-major assistant coaches in the country, including in 2022 after he joined the Florida coaching staff.
Prior to Florida, Hartman worked five seasons at Oklahoma under Lon Kruger before coaching at UNLV in the 2021-22 season. The Buffalo, N.Y., native was associate head coach at Columbia during Todd Golden’s two seasons on staff there.
At Oklahoma, the Sooners made NCAA Tournament appearances in each of Hartman’s last four seasons in Norman. As a recruiter, Hartman played a crucial role in bringing in the best recruiting class of the Kruger era at OU. The 2019 class was ranked the highest in the Big 12 and No. 13 in the nation by Rivals. Hartman was recognized by Stadium as one of the top three assistant coaches in the Big 12, based on a poll of league coaches in 2020. During Hartman’s tenure, he also coached and mentored Trae Young, who earned consensus All-American honors and led the nation in scoring (27.4) and assists (8.7) in 2017-18. Hartman also recruited Austin Reaves, who averaged 16.3 points as a Sooner and went on to the NBA.
In 2019, Hartman was one of 31 assistant coaches throughout the country to receive an invitation to the Second Annual Collegiate Coaching Consortium, which brings together rising basketball coaches and NCAA Division I athletics directors to participate in a multi-day academy.
Hartman was the lead recruiter of a multitude of Sooner players including eventual NBA Draft selections and had a focus on the development of the team’s big men position group, including All-Big 12 honorees Kristian Doolittle, Brady Manek and Khadeem Lattin. Lattin became the Sooners’ all-time leader in blocked shots.
Hartman has also been an active participant in important social justice initiatives. He is a member of the Coaches Coalition for Progress, and he helped form the Black Assistant Coaches Alliance in the Big 12. The CCFP’s mission is to effect change in inner cities and the BACA was formed in response to the ongoing social unrest throughout the country with the goal of creating effective platforms for building better opportunities through transparency, economic and financial literacy programs and civic engagement initiatives for all student-athletes and coaches.
Hartman made his coaching debut as an assistant at Rice in 1996 following his professional basketball career. He served in three separate stints with the Owls, returning for two seasons as director of operations from 2002-04 and as associate head coach from 2014-16.
Prior to his return to Rice, Hartman worked as Columbia’s associate head coach for four seasons. In 2013-14, he helped lead the program to its most wins (21) since 1968. From 2012-14, Hartman served as the Ivy League representative on the National Association of Basketball Coaches’ Assistant Coaches Committee.
Before his appointment at Columbia, Hartman was an assistant coach for one season each at James Madison and Centenary in 2009-10 and 2008-09, respectively.
From 2005-08, Hartman worked as assistant coach and was the lead recruiter at Richmond for three seasons where he recruited three of the top scorers in program history, including future NBA Draft pick Justin Harper.
Hartman mentored three future NBA talents at Rice from 2002-04 as director of operations, including the Owls’ all-time leading scorer and rebounder Mike Harris, as well as All-America honoree and 2007 NBA Draft selection Morris Almond and All-WAC honoree Mike Wilks. The Owls won 41 games over those two seasons, including a 23-13 mark in league play.
Additionally, Hartman spent one season each at McNeese State and Louisiana as an assistant coach.
Hartman earned a degree in communications with a concentration in broadcast journalism from Tulane in 1994. He was inducted into the Tulane Athletics Hall of Fame in 2020 along with his teammates from the 1992 Green Wave team, which was the first in Tulane history to reach the NCAA Tournament and to win an NCAA Tournament game. He is also set to be inducted into the Tulane Hall of Fame individually in 2023.
He wrapped up his Tulane career ranked 10th in scoring (1,180 points), third on the program’s career field goal percentage list (52.8 percent) and seventh in career steals (146). In 2011, Hartman was named to Tulane’s 1990s All-Decade Team as part of the Green Wave’s celebration of 100 years of basketball. Following college, the Rapid City Thrillers selected Hartman in the third round of the 1994 CBA Draft.
Hartman and his wife, Christine, have four children – Sydney, Kailyn, Tess and Joseph.
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Carlin Hartman Timeline
| 2022-present |
Florida |
Associate Head Coach |
| 2021-22 |
UNLV |
Assistant Coach |
| 2015-21 |
Oklahoma |
Assistant Coach |
| 2010-14 |
Columbia |
Associate Head Coach |
| 2019-10 |
James Madison |
Assistant Coach |
| 2008-09 |
Centenary |
Assistant Coach |
| 2005-08 |
Richmond |
Assistant Coach |
| 2004-05 |
Louisiana |
Assistant Coach |
| 2002-04 |
Rice |
Director of Basketball Operations |
| 1997-98 |
McNeese State |
Assistant Coach |
| 1996-97 |
Rice |
Assistant Coach |
| 1990-94 |
Tulane |
Student-Athlete |
