Updates: OJ Mayo

In what was supposed to be a tune up for the Pac-10 season which begins on Thursday night at California, USC’s basketball team (9-3) ran into some trouble in the first half against Riverside (3-8) on Saturday night before ultimately prevailing 70 - 57.  The Trojans trailed the Highlanders 26-12 early in the first half, but they […]

Trojan guard OJ Mayo appears–along with cross-town rival Kevin Love–on the regional cover of this week’s college basketball preview issue of Sports Illustrated. An article inside the magazine talks about the friendship between the two freshmen, and profiles Mayo, who tells SI that, “I try to make basketball like a chess game.”
SI may now have […]

Ben Bolch of the LA Times profiles junior big man RouSean Cromwell as a possible key performer with a significant upside, but a player who has been plagued by injuries over the last two seasons. If his solid defense of the Lopez twins of Stanford last year is any indication, a healthy Cromwell (who sat […]

“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 […]

Ben Bolch of the LA Times again profiles the very young Trojan hoops team with high expectations and a brutally difficult schedule - a schedule which was constituted with the thought that either Gabe Pruitt or Nick Young (both NBA rookies) would return for his senior season. OJ Mayo sums up the predicament:
We’ve got a […]

The Trojan men’s basketball team will hold a free, intrasquad scrimmage this Sunday (October 28) at the Galen Center at 1:00p. Prior to the scrimmage, at 9:00a, the team is also sponsoring the second annual “Dribble for the Cure” charity event.
More info on scrimmage and Dribble for the Cure (Official USC Site)
Some other basketball tidbits […]

When guard Ryan Wetherell left practice Monday with a gash over his right eye (requiring stitches) after colliding with Taj Gibson, the injury bug afflicting the Trojan basektball team had reached a critical mass, causing coach Tim Floyd to cut practice short. This was the fifth practice (or pickup game related) injury to a USC hoops […]

USA Today’s special college basketball preview section features USC’s OJ Mayo and UCLA’s Kevin Love on the cover, and an article on the two heralded freshmen inside. There’s no new information, but the profile does a good job recounting Mayo’s basketball career to date.
Big lights, big hopes for Mayo, Love in Los Angeles (USA Today)

The Trojans’ first Midnight Madness event in five years, held last night at the Galen Center in front of approximately 5,000 fans, included a defense-less intra-squad scrimmage, a slam dunk contest, and more. Freshman OJ Mayo chose not to participate in his the dunk contest–and his team actually lost the scrimmage–but otherwise impressed fans, who […]

New Trojan point guard OJ Mayo is elbowing out the competition–literally. Mayo accidentally elbowed his teammate, sophomore point guard Daniel Hackett, in the face during a pickup game at the Galen Center on Thursday, resulting in a broken jaw for Hackett. Hackett had surgery on Friday and his jaw is now wired shut, preventing him […]