(Adds financial adviser's, other comments)

By Michael Connor

MIAMI, June 12 (Reuters) - Alabama finance officials are puzzling over why no bidders showed up for a debt offering by the Alabama Public School and College Authority, forcing organizers to scuttle the deal.

Well known in the market, with about $2.3 billion of debt outstanding, the AA-rated authority on Thursday unexpectedly canceled a $285 million competitive offering of refunding bonds because no bids were received.

A nearly $40 million offering of new money bonds was also canceled by the authority, which has filed a lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) in a dispute over financial derivatives.

The authority's financial advisers and state officials are searching for explanations but so far attribute the fizzled deal to general market conditions, according to Bill Newton, Alabama's acting finance director.

"The bond market has been kind of strange for a number of weeks," Newton said.

Phil Dotts, president of Public FA Inc, an adviser on the authority deal, said the main reason for the poor turnout was probably June's big jump in muni yields. On June 1, the yield on a top-quality 10-year bond was 36 basis points fewer than Friday's close.

"We had to have a certain savings number, and, as we got closer to Thursday, we knew we were closer to the threshold," Dotts said. "We had bidders signed up and several goodwill deposits days before."