BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Even Florida guard Walter Hodge, now a senior, didn’t immediately notice the change last season. A Gators teammate would knock down an opposing player on a foul or while fighting for a loose ball, then stop and help the opponent up.

Then Joakim Noah — one of the Oh-Fours who led Florida to back-to-back national championships in 2006 and 2007 — dropped by one weekend during a break from the NBA.

“What are you guys doing?” he asked the six freshmen who comprised most of the team. “When you foul somebody hard, you don’t pick them up. That’s not Florida basketball.”

Said Hodge, “I hadn’t thought of that. I was trying to be a father to them. I didn’t want any conflicts.”

And so the Gators became the nice guys who didn’t make the NCAA tournament for the first time in 10 years and the first defending champs to fail to make the field since Kansas won it all in 1988 and didn’t return the following season.

Not that Noah was the first one to notice something wasn’t quite right last winter, despite the Gators standing 18-3 after an 86-64 home win over No. 19 Vanderbilt. Even as Florida was winning, coach Billy Donovan could feel it was losing the principles that had defined its title teams.

“When you know the other teams are shooting 47 percent from the field against you and you (the players) aren’t concerned,” Billy D said during the final day of the Southeastern Conference’s preseason media event, “you are going to have some problems.”

From that point on, Donovan watched his team lose seven of its final 10 SEC regular-season games, get bounced by Alabama in its SEC tournament opener and wind up in the NIT, where it lost in the semifinals.

“The new guys just didn’t understand,” Hodge said. “After we beat Vanderbilt, it was like, ‘We’ve got it.’ They just quit listening.”

Both Hodge and Donovan said the six Baby Gators have returned for their sophomore seasons a good deal older and wiser, beginning with point guard Nick Calathes, who finished third in preseason SEC Player of the Year voting, just behind favorite Tyler Smith of Tennessee and Kentucky forward Patrick Patterson.

“I see a big difference in the way they’ve approached practice the first week,” Donovan said. “It’s early, but so far I like what I see.”

Perhaps that’s why Hodge no longer wears his two national championship rings.

“That’s in the past,” he said. “I want another one, and this is my last chance.”

Felton sees momentum

No one knows about last chances better than Georgia coach Dennis Felton. The Bulldogs went into the 2008 SEC tournament expecting Felton to be fired as soon as he lost.

Only he didn’t lose. In a rousing run that was only slightly less shocking than the tornado that moved the final two sessions and the Georgia-Kentucky quarterfinal game to Georgia Tech after the Georgia Dome was damaged, the Bulldogs won three games in roughly 27 hours to save Felton’s job.

Never mind that the catalysts of that run — point guard Sundiata Gaines and post player Dave Bliss — have used up their eligibility. According to Felton, “I hate to look at it as rebuilding. ... We’re looking at it as continuing the progression and building a great program. Winning the SEC championship last spring has generated great momentum.”

Still, the Bulldogs will have five freshmen and four sophomores on their roster. And only senior Terrance Woodbury figures to put up big numbers among the four upperclassmen.

But junior center Albert Jackson says you can’t measure what the Bulldogs accomplished last spring with statistics.

“Any time I falter,” he said, “I look at my ring, look at the banner and tell myself I need to pick it up to be where I want to be. Once you’re a champion, you always have the desire to be a champion.”

Johnson loving Cajun

Despite spending most of his life in the Far West, first-year LSU coach Trent Johnson hasn’t had much trouble adapting to bayou basketball.

“The food is unbelievable,” said Johnson, who was the head coach at Stanford before taking the LSU job. “The Cajun boudin balls at Tony’s Seafood (in Baton Rouge) might be my favorite. There’s nothing that they fry that isn’t great. I know it’s not what I should be eating, but I can’t help it.”

Ole Miss misses event

Plane problems forced Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy and his players to miss the media event Thursday morning.

Perhaps that’s why Kennedy sent along the following quote through the league office regarding the city where he once starred as a member of the UAB Blazers:

“I am familiar with Birmingham,” he said, “and it is a very easy trip with the improvements on the roads.”