This time last year, the Florida Gators were assembling 30 consecutive victories and on their way to the top seed in the 68-team men's NCAA basketball tournament.
Florida's win streak ended in the Final Four, but this season is proving to be a long way from last season.
Entering tonight's game against visiting Vanderbilt, Billy Donovan's Gators are 12-13 overall and 5-7 in the Southeastern Conference. Florida has not been under .500 through 25 games since Donovan's first season in Gainesville back in 1997.
Florida's Jon Horford (21) tries to back down Texas A&M's Kourtney Roberson before making a run at the basket in the first half of an NCAA college basketball game in College Station, Texas, Saturday, Feb. 14, 2015. Texas A&M won the game 63-62."This is not a surprise for me at all, just knowing what we had coming back and what we had coming in," Donovan said.
Cycling off last season's 36-3 team was the senior starting quartet of Scottie Wilbekin, Casey Prather, Patric Young and Will Yeguete. Junior guard Michael Frazier headlined the returning players, but a surplus of sophomores and freshmen has taken its toll.
Florida won a national championship in 2006 with a sophomore-heavy roster, but the dynamic now is nowhere close to that one.
"I knew it was a problem when last season ended," Donovan said. "We knew we had some challenges before the season, but I don't know if anybody really listened to what I had to say. They thought I was just downplaying my team, but when you are around Dorian Finney-Smith, Eli Carter, Kasey Hill and Chris Walker, you knew they were going to need to take a competitive jump as players.
"My biggest challenge has been trying to change the competitive mindset of some young guys who have been this way their entire lives. Their mentality and approach needs to change, and hopefully through some of these experiences this year, we can change their mindset."
Florida's experiences this winter have been torturous on occasion, most notably when forward Jacob Kurtz went up for a rebound in the final seconds at Florida State on Dec. 30 and accidentally tipped the ball in, giving the Seminoles a 65-63 victory. The Gators took their lumps in a challenging out-of-conference schedule and have suffered from close calls in SEC play, losing to Ole Miss 72-71 last month in Oxford and 62-61 last week in Gainesville.
The Gators followed last Thursday's loss to the Rebels, which was decided by a Stefan Moody 3-pointer with 2.7 seconds left, with a 63-62 setback Saturday at Texas A&M.
"It's tough, man," Carter told reporters after the loss to the Aggies. "That's two tough losses in a row. We've got to dig in and be fed up with this."
Florida was ranked No. 7 in the preseason largely due to Frazier's return and the 2013 signing duo of Hill and Walker. The 2013 class was topped nationally by Kansas recruit Andrew Wiggins, Kentucky's Julius Randle, Arizona's Aaron Gordon, Duke's Jabari Parker and one of Kentucky's Harrison twins, but Walker was the country's No. 6 prospect and Hill was No. 10.
Nearing the end of their second season with the Gators, the two are fighting just to be serviceable in the SEC. Opponents do not fear the shooting ability of Hill, who is making 36.9 percent of his shots and has made just 7 of 22 3-pointers.
Walker plays just 15 minutes a game and is a woeful 40.5 percent from the free-throw line.
Florida has been forced to rely too much this season on Frazier, the team's leading scorer at 13.2 points per game, but that is not an option now. The 6-foot-4, 195-pounder from Tampa is sidelined by a high ankle sprain.
"The best-case scenario right now is the end of the month," Donovan said of Frazier's return. "We've got a couple of games at the end of the month against Missouri and Tennessee, and it's probably going to be around that time frame. It could go longer, but I don't think it will happen any sooner.
"Injuries have always been a part of the game, and when you have a good player out, you have to move forward."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.