Football

• Dennis Dodd wrapped up his series of position coach evaluations by naming Pete Carroll top head coach in the land. [CBS Sports]
• The Matt Barkley hype is up to another unprecedented level. USC's future quarterback is the first junior ever to be named high school athlete of the year -- out of all male sports. No pressure, kid! [LA Times]
• Thomas Williams inked his first NFL contract. [AP]
• Chilo Rachal signed as well. [RF365]
• Hey ladies! Taylor Mays is a football star, funny, and apparently single. Check out this interview. [Video on USCFootball.com]
• USC is an early 18 point favorite over Virginia. [Vegas Insider]

Hoops

• DeMar DeRozan is good to go. [LA Times]
• O.J. Mayo made the US Select team to prep for international competition. [AP]
• SI dubbed O.J. Mayo the #8 breakout freshman of 2007-08. [Sports Illustrated]
• Davon Jefferson says he has no regrets. [Riverside Press-Enterprise]

Elsewhere

• Another publication tried to re-rank the top school in all sports from last year. USC was seventh. [Sports Illustrated]
• A trio of Trojans made Sports Illustrated's gallery of best college photos from 2007-08: Desmond Reed, Vidal Hazelton, and Janessa Currier.

• Thomas Williams is learning what life is like as an NFL rookie. [Times-Union]
• Recruit #12: USC signs 4-star wide receiver out of South Carolina. [SC Playbook]
• USC is a popular bet to win the national championship. [MR. SEC, h/t Da Wiz]
• Somebody's taking a really, really early look at USC-Virginia. [RF365]
• Oregon State could be the big sleeper game of the year. I couldn't agree more. [Coaches Hot Seat]
• With Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen joining a couple other key college football figures in retirement, could the BCS change? Not likely. [NYT Quad Blog]
• If not the BCS, could expansion be on the table? Probably not, but here are the contenders. [Fanblogs.com]

Hoops

• Ready for another mock draft? Here's O.J. Mayo at #3 again. [ESPN]

Elsewhere

• The NCAA track and field championships start today. [Daily Trojan]
• Football player Ron Mix and swimmer Lenny Krayzelburg were inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. [NJSHOFAM]
• Oregon State is bigger, meaner, oranger. They might want to have that looked at. [Building the Dam]
• Los Angeles is TitleTown, obviously! [ESPN]
• Are Bush and Tush hearing wedding bells? Run, Reggie, run! [Larry Brown]

• Reggie Bush is proving to be as elusive off the field as he is on it. The trial has been postponed. Again. [LA Times]
• However, Bush's side is seeking arbitration and that could involve a serious admission. [Yahoo!]
• In case I forgot to mention it earlier, a USC commit is officially the fastest in the state at the 100m and 200m. [LA Times]
• John David Booty is getting solid reviews. [NFL]
• Jeff Tedford has joined the blogosphere. It's less "bells and whistles" than Pete Carroll's, but also a bit more personal in tone. [Cal]
• Looking to get in a flame war with USC haters? Here ya' go. [Bleacher Report]

Hoops

• O.J. Mayo may sign with an agent from CAA. [Draft Express]
• Tim Floyd had a lot to say about O.J. Mayo, though nothing new to regular readers of this blog. [Timeberwolves]
• Kentucky transfer Derrick Jasper is looking at USC. [SLO]

Other Sports

• Another reminder that USC allegedly gave a really good baseball coach the boot. [LA Times]
• Basketball isn't the only sport struggling to hang onto talent. High school phenon Tim Beckham had signed to play baseball at USC, but was the #1 overall pick in yesterday's MLB draft. Don't expect to see him play an inning of college ball. [ESPN]
• Ditto for #14 Aaron Hicks. [MN Star Tribune]
• And #56 Jay Austin. [Houston Chronicle]
• And #110 Jon Pettibone. [News Journal]
• The women's tennis team had two All American nods, while the men equaled that and had the ITA Doubles Team of the Year. [USC]

• Still bitter that USC got left out of the national championship game in January 2005? In retrospect, it was still the biggest BCS slight of the decade. [ESPN]
• On the plus side, Pete Carroll is the coach who has most defined the BCS era. [ESPN]
• Here's a Vegas-style analysis of USC's national title chances. Be forewarned, the language is R-rated. While there are a couple errors (some self-admitted), it's still interesting to think about the odds. [Money Line Journal]

Hoops

• No big surprise, the NBA Players Association is investigating BDA and O.J. Mayo. [ESPN]
• Chad Ford says watching DeMar DeRozan is like stumbling into a diamond mine. "From what I saw in roughly an hour, he's the real thing. Playing against college veterans three to four years older than him, he was dominant. He already has a pro body and a very smooth offensive game. He reminds me a lot of Dwyane Wade." [ESPN Insider, subscription required]

Not Sports

• Holly Ashcraft pleaded guilty to dumping her newborn in a dumpster behind a USC hangout. [LA Times]
• USC is home to a vibrant Indian community. I tried the naan at Manas yesterday -- tasty! [LA Times]
• Topping has been toppled. [TrojanWire]

Mayo was very open about things and earnest in his denial of the allegations.

UPDATE: Here's the first version of the story.

If the current lottery standings stay true (meaning the odds play out), ESPN's Chad Ford thinks the Memphis Grizzlies will draft O.J. Mayo with the #4 pick.

But armed with the #3 pick, the Grizzlies, the Clippers and the Knicks are all assumed to go after Mayo in this years NBA Draft.

NBA Lottery Mock Draft 2008 [ESPN]

• "I don't know anything about it. It caught me by surprise. I've got to get to L.A. to see what's going on. I'm just focusing on the draft."
• "I had no knowledge of anything like that. I'll find our more when I meet with Mr. Duffy and Mr. [Calvin] Andrews [of BDA]," Mayo said.
• When asked specifically if he received any money from Guillory, Mayo said, "No sir, I did not receive any money from Calvin or Rodney or anything. It all caught me by surprise."
• "I would just like to know if I did [get money] where did the money go. I was a struggling college student like everyone else. I bicycled to class. The truth will come out, even though the perception is reality."

I've been around Mayo on quite a few occasions, though always in some sort of basketball arena. He's very composed. He strikes me as a good kid. It's entirely possible that he's wrongfully getting his name dragged through the mud.

At the same time, ESPN has gone so far as to check with employees at clothing stores that Mayo allegedly frequented. USC has had previous bad experiences with Guillory. There's a lot of investigating yet to be done.

Yeah, well, here goes: O.J. Mayo might have received gifts and cash during his one year of playing basketball at Southern Cal. In other words, O.J. Mayo played one year of basketball at USC. (more…)

Share This

Candy Yee is a volunteer at the information desk in Heritage Hall. You'll see her, along with Patti and Dudley Poon, every Friday afternoon in the main lobby. They can hook you up with posters, schedules, and even something for your sweet tooth.

Working in Heritage Hall means Candy sees a lot of USC celebs and she's sharing her stories over on TrojanCandy.com. She's also keeping us on our toes with a blog called "Trojan Justice: The (UC)LA Times Watchdog."

Candy raves about O.J. Mayo as one of the nicest guys she's met (he digs the Skittles and Snickers). She laughed that when Mayo took a photo with her son, clad in a Stanford jersey, the hoops star gave him a giant hug to cover the rival team's logo.

Pictured (l-r): Candy, Patti, Dudley.