Top 50 senior Omar Payne sets visits

Top 50 big man Omar Payne has taken another step towards making his college decision.

Earlier this month the long armed and bouncy insider who attends Montverde (Fla.) Academy cut his list down to a final seven of Central Florida, Florida, Florida State, Louisville, LSU, Ohio State and Texas.

Now, Payne has started to lock in some official visit dates and has chopped one school from his list.

Payne, who ran with Team Parsons during the summer, has set up his first four official visits and one in home visit.

Leonard Hamilton and Florida State get the first crack at him on September 2nd. He'll stay in state the next week with a trip to see Mike White and Florida beginning September 7th. After a week break he'll make the trip to Columbus to Chris Holtmann and the Buckeyes beginning September 21st and on the weekend of October 12th he's all set to see LSU. LSU and WIll Wade also have an in home visit set for the 10th of September.

An official visit to Louisville is still being planned and UCF will get an unofficial visit because of their proximity to home. Texas has been eliminated.

In the past Payne has told Rivals.com that he could wait until the spring to make a decision but the expectation is that he'll have a decision in time to sign early. We don't know if there is a true favorite headed into the visit process, but at Rivals we have long thought Payne will be tough to pull out of his home state and we'll give the Gators and Seminoles a slight advantage over the field as he begins to take his trips.