Florida could be without one of its top scorers for the near future.
Michael Frazier II is expected to miss Thursday’s game against Ole Miss with a high ankle sprain, coach Billy Donovan confirmed Monday.
The 6-foot-4 shooting guard injured his right ankle in the first half of Florida’s 68-61 home loss to No. 1 Kentucky on Saturday.
He attempted to re-enter the game on two separate occasions but was not able to compete.
He scored a team-high 10 points in the first half against the Wildcats, sinking 3-of-4 shots and making both of his free throws in the process.
Donovan is not sure when Frazier will return.
"It could be a couple weeks. It could be three days. It could be a week. I just don’t know right now," Donovan said.
Frazier’s absence leaves a large void in a Gators offense that has failed to find any form of consistency this season.
Florida is 11th in the Southeastern Conference in scoring offense, averaging 65.8 points per game.
The majority of that point total has come from Frazier, as the junior is averaging a team-best 13.2 points each time he steps on the court.
He has scored in double figures in all but five of Florida’s 23 games this season.
"It’s not one guy that’s going to make up for a player like Michael," Donovan said. "We’ll need some other guys to contribute."
Frazier was a key component in the Gators’ offense the last time they played Ole Miss — a 72-71 loss in Oxford, Mississippi on Jan. 24.
The junior scored a game-high 27 points on 7-of-11 shooting — including a 6-for-8 mark from downtown.
Outside of redshirt junior Dorian Finney-Smith’s 15-point outing, no other UF player scored more than eight points.
"Frazier is one of our best scorers so it’s going to be tough without him on the offensive end," freshman Chris Chiozza said.
"But we have a lot of offensive power that I think we just haven’t really connected yet one game this season. Without him, it’s really going to be up to us to really connect and I think we can do it. It’s just going to be a little bit tougher."
And without Frazier, Florida is going to need to find a way to make the connection stick, which could be tough against a surging Ole Miss team.
The Rebels have won its last five games by an average of 8.8 points.
But Chiozza said the team’s mentality has shifted as of late, a sign that the team is trying to turn the corner and end the season on a high note.
"At the beginning of the year, if anything went wrong … our whole team got down," Chiozza said. "But now we’re really focused on the mindset of losing the last play and moving on to the next one. And I think that helps everyone move on and not worry about the past."
Follow Jordan McPherson on Twitter @J_McPherson1126
Michael Frazier attempts a three-point shot during Florida's loss to No. 1 Kentucky in the O'Connell Center.
