Now that the gumshoes (an overly generous term if ever there was one) over at the WWL have pretty much made the case for the NCAA that OJ Mayo was taking improper benefits both before and during his short stint at USC, TrojanLand is doing all it can to respond in the most American of ways – by covering their ass.
Look Who’s Coming, Trojans! (photo credit: AP)
Anticpating an imminent NCAA investigation – after all, Myles Brand ain’t nobody’s chump – USC is battoning down the hatches and getting its story together. According to the LA Daily News:
USC intends to tell the NCAA it knew of no wrongdoing involving O.J. Mayo and banned his mentor, Rodney Guillory, from receiving tickets as an illustration of its attempt to prevent the basketball star from receiving any improper benefits, according to sources. That will be the outline of the university’s defense, according to officials familiar with the situation. “Right now, we’re just trying to weather the storm,” said a USC official, who asked not to be identified.
Sounds reasonable enough. Guillory, the man who gold-foil giftwrapped Mayo for USC, wasn’t allowed to receive tickets to games. We’re not sure exactly what that proves, as we suppose he could have simply bought tickets off of Craigslist like everyone else. But what about this little piece of prejudicial information?
But there remain some questions to this defense. Guillory was frequently seen in the basketball offices and also around the locker room, and regularly attended pickup games at the Galen Center when Mayo played last summer.
So USC’s defense is that they didn’t provide game tickets to Guillory, where unless he was literally sitting in the huddle he wouldn’t have been able to communicate with Mayo anyway; BUT, Guillory was allowed to loiter around the locker room, the basketball offices and the pickup games (where he could ostensibly run into Mayo at any moment). We’s no lawyerin type, but that sounds like troubles in Troy.
Of course, it IS the typically-befuddled NCAA we’re talking about. They might start investigating USC and end up putting UCLA on probation.