Florida Basketball: Gators hire Al Pinkins as associate head coach

(Photo by George Walker/Icon Sportswire)

Al Pinkins has been named the new associate head coach at Florida.

Pinkins joins the Gators just days after Armon Gates was introduced as the new assistant coach at Nebraska.

Gates was hired by Florida on April 8, but spent less than a month on the job before accepting the role on Tim Miles’ staff.

As for Pinkins, he’s no stranger to the SEC having spent several seasons in an assistant role throughout the league.

Before serving as an assistant at Texas Tech for the past three seasons, he spent a season each at LSU and Tennessee after being at Ole Miss for three years.

Pinkins’ longest coaching tenure came at Middle Tennessee, where he started working under Kermit Davis in 2003 before leaving for Oxford in 2011.

Florida returns several key rotation players heading into next season while adding a top-20 recruiting class that features 5-star point guard Andrew Nembhard and 4-stars Keyontae Johnson and Noah Locke.

The Gators finished 21-13 overall this past season and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament before losing to Texas Tech.

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