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It wasn't very long ago that I truly believed that the outlook for the Florida men's basketball team for next year was quite good, despite coming off back to back NIT appearances.

But in an alarmingly short time, that belief has been shaken to its core.

In less than a week's time, freshman Allan Chaney decides to transfer, 2009 recruit DeShawn Painter decides not to bring his 6'9" frame to Gainesville, and starting forward Alex Tyus stunned just about everyone by saying he would be transferring. Add to all of this the possibility that starting point guard Nick Calathes could leave for the NBA or for money overseas and you have kids leaving like the Titanic was going down.

In about a week, Florida went from being one scholarship over the limit for 2009 to three under the limit if Calathes bolts. Amazing.

Chaney and Tyus now are added to an increasingly long list of players who decided to leave the program over the last six years or so. Rashid Al Kaleem, Mohamed Abukar, Ryan Appleby, Mario Boggan, Christian Dreyer, David Huertas, Jai Lucas, Jonathan Mitchell, Brandon Powell, Jimmie Sutton, James White. Am I leaving out any? And that doesn't include the players who left early for the NBA.

Let's be fair here however; players leave programs all the time for various reasons. But it does seem like Florida has had more than its fair share and you can bet this will be used against the Gators along the recruiting trail.

The question I get a lot is this; why are these kids transferring? Most of the time, it is about playing time, or a lack of it. A player like Huertas for example didn't want to wait his turn and he left for more playing time at Ole Miss. Understandable Sometimes players cannot handle the sometimes blunt criticism Donovan gives his players both privately and publicly. That's understandable too.

What is harder to explain are the transfers of the most recent players to leave. Guard Jai Lucas played a lot his freshman season, but he apparently wanted to have the ball in his hands all the time and that was not going to happen with Calathes around so he bolted for Texas.

Chaney, according to Donovan, had some maturity issues to get through; he believed he was doing the things necessary to be successful in his mind but in the mind of the coaches and others he was not doing those things so the parting of the ways here was probably a mutual thing.

Tyus is the most perplexing transfer of them all. He played as a freshman and did a great job in the offseason of working on his game, developing a nice face the basket jump shot and some nifty post moves. Playing out of position this year at center, he played well and took the second most shots on the team.

But out of nowhere, word comes through Tyus on his Facebook page (of course) that the reason he is leaving is that he feels he was not getting the opportunity to be the best basketball player he could be "along with a few other basketball factors."

If what I am hearing is true, that really means that Tyus believes his NBA future lies at playing another position on the floor that he would not have been playing at Florida. So, rather than helping the team by playing that position, Tyus will transfer in hopes of playing that other position, most likely at small forward rather than power forward.

And that all leads us to perhaps the most important question of them all; what is the future of Florida men's basketball?

In the short term, next year we could be looking at another NIT year because of all the defections but I truly believe Billy Donovan and his staff are going to go out and recruit their rear ends off and get this program back to being an NCAA Tournament team in most years.

Donovan has made some recruiting mistakes that have set his program back and those mistakes must be corrected. The defections in his coaching staff haven't helped matters either. But as he said in meeting with the media recently, he has to go out and get kids that are willing to make the many sacrifices necessary to become good not only at things like dribbling, passing and shooting but also in things like being mentally tough, being willing to put in extra work and take criticism, and being willing to be a trusting and accountable teammate.

In watching his teams play the last couple of seasons, it was pretty plain to see the group lacked some of the intangible things it takes to make you a winner. And the tangible things too.

So for the future, hold on to the thought that Billy D hasn't forgotten how to coach or win or recruit just a couple of years removed from back to back national championships and that things will get right. It may try your patience, it may take a little while, but I do trust that he will get the job done.

Anyone have any eligibility left?