O.J. Mayo: The Gift That Keeps On Giving
After last year’s “Outside the Line” report, we figured that we wouldn’t hear much more about O.J. Mayo’s time at USC (Reggie Bush’s parents lived in a million dollar house and the NCAA didn’t seem to care). We expected that the biggest impact we would see was the reemergence of Taj Gibson and other Trojans who mysteriously disappeared during Mayo’s time in LA.
It turns out that Mayo might be leaving a more lasting impact on USC basketball than we expected as new reports indicate that Tim Floyd gave at least $1,000 to Rodney Guillory, one of Mayo’s handlers. [Ed. Note: Is Yahoo! Sports run by UCLA's journalism school? First Bush and now Mayo?] Given the fact that the NCAA is already “investigating” the Trojans’ basketball and football programs this could be a major blow to the USC athletic department. The question is whether the NCAA will bring out the whip against one of its glamour programs.
The new allegations (ok, we sort of figured this was going on) raise several others questions:
- Was Renardo Sidney (or his handlers) aware of this when he (they) made the decision to go to Mississippi State?
- How much does Tim Floyd regret turning down that Arizona payday?
- Do USC’s two 4-star recruits (Noel Johnson and Lamont Jones) have Memphis-style opt-out clauses in their LOIs? It probably wouldn’t work here, but I’m betting they are wishing they had waited this out.
Our guess is that this investigation will take at least a few years before the NCAA finally decides that they don’t have enough as information as the suits in Indianapolis are more concerned with hunting down college students using Facebook or other crimes against humanity. Actions that impact the integrity of the game? Not so important in Indianapolis. . .
This is completely and utterly shocking news!!!
Dan Wetzel has done plenty of slamming John Wooden over the years so I would say that suggests the USC focus is not based on seeing these things through Bruin Colored glasses (Wetzel loves Tark the Shark who hates Wooden. And UCLA does not have a Journalism school. Bruins like myself have always assumed that the most likely outcome was USC hoops getting probation while St. Pete Carrol might lose a recruiting day or something. He is a humanitarian after all, just ask him.
[...] richest young men. When reports surfaced last month that Floyd paid cashmoney directly to OJ Mayo’s handlers in order to get him to Troy, his [...]