“Anything short of a national championship will be a failure for the team this year,” said freshman guard OJ Mayo on a day filled with more USC basketball coverage than normal, thanks to the Pac-10’s annual Media Day event, which was held in the morning. The consensus among sportswriters seems to be that the Pac-10 is by far the strongest conference in the country, and the Trojans are staring at perhaps the toughest schedule in the nation, thanks to the addition of a brutal nonconference lineup. Some pundits are predicting that as many as eight teams from the conference could reach the NCAA tournament this year.

Some bad news on the injury front: freshman Mamadou Diarra met with a doctor on Thursday, and, as expected, he will need to undergo surgery to correct a hernia. The procedure will take place next week, and recovery will stretch out for at least a month after that.

Mayo’s plans go beyond Sweet 16 for USC (LA Times)
New point man [Angelo Johnson profile] (Rivals, $)
Pac-10 men’s basketball: League can back up the hype (San Francisco Chronicle)
Getting defensive (Yahoo!)
UCLA picked to win title in power-packed Pac-10 (AP via SI.com)
Pac-10 Men’s Basketball Media Day Quotes (Official Pac-10 site)