SEC Basketball: Off-Season News and Notes

Speights, Randolph declare for Draft, will not hire agents 

Floridasophomore forward Marreese Speights and LSU freshman forward Anthony Randolph are both looking to test their luck in the NBA lottery.

Neither one has hired and agent, make a return for their respective next season possible. 

Speights averaged 14.5 points per game for the Gators this season, good enough for second on a team who made it to New York this season for the NIT Semi-finals.  To go with his 14 points, Speights had 8.1 rebounds a game and 49 blocks on the season, averaging just under 25 minutes a game. 

In an average of 32 minutes of play, Randolphaveraged 15.6 ppg, 8.5 rpg, and 70 blocks on the season.  Randolph was a leader for a LSU team in turmoil for most of the season, leading the team in rebounding and being second in points per game. 

Hansbrough looking to transfer from Mississippi State, no school named as favorite 

Mississippi State sophomore guard Ben Hansbrough has made it known that he will transfer out of Starkville. 

Hansbrough, the Bulldogs leader in free throw percentage and three point percentage, has not named his possible new location nor given a hint as to where he may go. 

MSU head coach Rick Stansbury cited that Hansbrough was leaving because he feels that he can’t “be the best basketball player” he possibly can at State and a lack of suitable practice facilities.

“As simple as that may sound, that’s a huge thing for me,” Hansbrough said in reference to the practice facilities.  “That has a lot to do with it right there.”

“Ben is a good kid and we wish him the best of luck in his future endeavours,” Stansbury said in a statement.

 Alabama faces potential problems amid transfers, draft declarations 

The off-season has already been a tumultuous one for the Alabama Crimson Tide.

Two of the team’s potential stars for next season, forward Richard Hendrix and guard Ronald Steele, have both declared for the NBA draft, but neither have hired an agent. 

Steele will return as long as he is not ensured of a first-round pick.  He missed this whole season recovering from off-season knee surgery.

Hendrix, a member of the 1^st team All-SEC team, was the only player in the SEC this season to average a double-double. 

Not only does the Tide face these potential departures, two guards have also voiced the desire to transfer.

Freshman Rico Pickett and sophomore Justin Tubbs have both said they will not return to the team next season.

Pickett was suspended indefinitely for the second time in his short tenure at Alabama on Sunday night.  The very next day, his father had said that he would transfer.

“Nothing possibly that (head) Coach (Mark) Gottfried can talk about can make me come back,” Pickett told the Decatur Daily, his hometown newspaper.

Tubbs, who was mysteriously benched this season, has informed the coaching staff that he will be changing schools for next season.

Rumor has it that Gottfried decided in the middle of the season to try and run off either Tubbs or Pickett to save a scholarship next season for Ron Steele.  Now, Gottfried may be without all three of them.

Counting those four players, as well as the three graduating seniors, the Tide may lose half of their team from last season.  If this holds true, Alabama would lose 41.3 points of the 75.3 they averaged last season.

The Tide’s incoming recruiting class is #11 according to rivals.com right now, with three players in the top 50 nationally coming to the Capstone next season.