Alabi exits Florida State

Sports betting junkies should have a very good idea of how to pick games involving a few specific teams during the 2010-2011 college basketball season. One team that will be much easier to bet against is Florida State. The Seminoles would have had a loaded squad under head coach Leonard Hamilton, but they received something of a shock when Solomon Alabi, a 7-foot-1 sophomore center from Nigeria, chose to enter the NBA Draft and sign with an agent, thereby ending his collegiate career on the spot. Alabi averaged under 10 points per game last season, and the 251-pounder is very much a project at the center spot; he’s not a fully formed player, and he needs time to develop. A junior season would have done wonders for Alabi’s game, but fears about an NBA lockout in 2011, plus a restriction of rookie salaries, clearly led Alabi to bolt for the pros at this point in time. Without the threat of a lockout, Alabi might very well have stayed in Tallahassee, Florida.

Ogilvy leaves Vanderbilt

In the realm of Final Four betting, any contenders for college basketball’s biggest event generally require a quality center that can operate effectively within 10 feet of the basket. Vanderbilt’s basketball team had the makings of a special group this upcoming season, but coach Kevin Stallings’ plans have been dashed by another lockout-based decision. Commodore center A.J. Ogilvy, who was inconsistent for much of the 2010 season and came up short in both the SEC and NCAA tournaments, nevertheless decided to head to the NBA Draft while also signing with an agent. Ogilvy got dominated in the semifinals of the SEC Tournament by Mississippi State big man Jarvis Varnado. More specifically, Ogilvy allowed himself to get pushed outside the paint. Yet, the native of Australia chose to leave the college game behind for good. This is a crippling blow to a Vandy program that was lining up all the right pieces for a big run in 2011.

Babbitt bolts from Nevada

A third team that got hammered in this college basketball offseason – and which will suffer on the court in the coming season – is the Nevada Wolf Pack. Having already lost Armon Johnson to the NBA Draft, one of the steadier programs in the Western Athletic Conference got stomach-punched when star player Luke Babbitt signed with an agent, officially marking his passage from Reno to the big show. Babbitt averaged 22 points and nine rebounds in his sophomore season, but due to a weak lineup around him, he wasn’t able to get Nevada back to the NCAA Tournament. His junior season was shaping up to be a time of great promise, as a more experienced ballclub appeared ready to supplement Babbitt’s talents and make the Wolf Pack worthy of the Big Dance. Now, that scenario won’t be able to materialize. Utah State just became an even more attractive choice, as the Northbet.com pick, to win the WAC title in 2011.