Gibbons led the Lakers to a
22-8 record in 2003-04, the second-best record in school history. The Lakers had several NCAA
Division II school bests in 2003-04, including a 14-1 home
record, an 11-1 start to the season; and a 13-game home winning streak.
In addition, Clayton State was ranked eighth
in the Final South Atlantic Region poll and finished the season ninth in the
nation in scoring defense, 11th in field goal percentage defense and 15th in
rebounding margin.
The fourth-winningest active
men’s basketball coach in NCAA Division II, Gibbons won his 300th game in
February of 2004, becoming the fastest Division II coach to reach the plateau.
The Lakers won the 2001-02 PBC
Championship with a 19-9 overall and a 15-4 mark in the league in Gibbons' debut
season on the "Lake". The championship
for Gibbons was his ninth in the last 14 years.
Winning
at the national level is not foreign to Gibbons, evidenced
by his 10-year career at Florida Southern, where he had a
246-65 record (3rd winningest Div. II record) and posted
nine 20-win seasons. His success on the national stage at
Florida Southern included six trips to the NCAA Division
II National Tournament, two
appearances in the Elite Eight and one appearance in the
Final Four.
Gibbons
averaged a 25-7 win-loss record at Florida Southern and a
.790 percent
winning percentage. His top season came as recent as the
1999-00 campaign when he led the Moccasins to a 32-2 record, a trip
to the Elite Eight and a No. 1 national ranking in the
final Division II poll.
In
the 1998-99 season, Gibbons led his team to a 28-8 record
and a third place finish in the country. Florida Southern
defeated California State-San Bernardino in
Louisville, KY in the third place game.
His
Florida Southern teams were either the regular season or tournament
champions in the Sunshine State Conference in eight of his
10 years and were ranked in the top 20 six times. He
compiled a 70-13 conference record during his last five
years at Florida Southern.
Overall, in 15 seasons at the NCAA Division II level, Gibbons is 343-112 for a
winning percentage of .754, ranking him third amongst all active head coaches at
that level and ninth all-time.
In
addition to team accomplishments, Gibbons’ players also
excelled academically and athletically. Forty of his 45
seniors graduated under his leadership. In his 12 years as
head coach and three years as an assistant coach, Gibbons had
eight All-Americas, two national Players of the Year and
one player drafted by the National Basketball Association.
He also had 22 players play professional basketball in the
United States and Europe.
Gibbons
was named the Division II Bulletin’s National Coach of
the Month in January of 1999 and was a finalist for
National Coach of the Year in 1999-00 by Basketball Times.
He was named the 1995-96 NCAA South Region NABC Coach of
the Year and a three-time Sunshine State Conference Coach
of the Year.
Prior
to coaching at Florida Southern, Gibbons was an assistant
at the University of South Florida for three years and was
named interim head coach of the Sun Belt Conference Bulls
during the 1979-80 season. He has been a head coach at the
professional, junior college and high school level. In 13
years at the high school level, he averaged over 20 wins
per season, leading four teams to Final Four state
appearances.
Gibbons
and his wife Joyce have one daughter, Holly, 28, and one
son, Jay, 25.
Gordon
Gibbons arrived in Atlanta in the spring of 2001 and immediately turned around the Clayton State men’s
basketball program.