USC's O.J. Mayo

USC's O.J. Mayo

Los Angeles ? Less than eight minutes of game clock remained for University of Southern California celebrity freshman basketball player O.J. Mayo to justify all the hype. To that point in Thursday night’s game against Oklahoma, Mayo had misfired on 10 of his 13 attempts from the field, and the Trojans led by six points.

Here’s what Mayo did on USC’s next five possessions: Caught the ball deep in the right corner, used his blur of a first step to blow by his man, drove the baseline, dribbled left at the last moment to avoid the help on the way and put it off the glass for a bucket. Hit a fade-away jumper from 18 feet on the left wing. Made a 3-pointer from the left corner. Drove straight down the lane and dropped it in. Ditched his defender with a wicked head fake and cross-over dribble to his left hand at the top of the key, drove the lane and finished on the right side for a layup.

In the span of four minutes and 20 seconds, Mayo outscored Oklahoma, 11-5, to give the Trojans a 66-55 victory that pushed their record to 6-1.

Hype justified.

The next question that needed to be answered was whether Mayo, who leads USC against Kansas University today in the Galen Center for a 1 p.m. (Central time) tipoff, would match the stereotype of another self-obsessed, mumbling, egomaniacal college basketball superstar during the postgame media session.

Reading accounts from afar suggested he would fit the stereotype. After all, he had played six seasons of varsity basketball in three different states. He had been suspended three games in high school for an incident with a referee. He had committed to USC without visiting the school or meeting the coach in person, a recruitment that started with a Southern California basketball promoter making an unannounced visit to the office of USC coach Tim Floyd and asking him if he’d like to coach O.J. Mayo, a 6-foot-5 guard.

And then there was the clumsy cover-up explanation of just how teammate Daniel Hackett wound up with a jaw so severely fractured it had to be wired shut for longer than a month. Mayo and Hackett said it was an accidental elbow from Mayo. Another teammate told the Los Angeles Daily News: “Yeah, he punched him. They changed the story for the media.”

So when the locker room door swung open after Thursday’s game – the USC athletic department believes that open locker rooms and the ensuing interactions with reporters will help student-athletes in developing communication skills that will help them later in life – the expectation was Mayo would prove himself a punk.

He did just the opposite while taking questions for 13 minutes from the chair in front of his locker.

He began several of his answers with “Yes sir” and several others with “No sir.” He didn’t dodge questions, wasn’t dismissive of any of them and looked the person asking the question in the eye while answering it.

He frequently watches the ESPN Classic Sports channel, which is the origin of his deep respect for NBA legends.

He wears No. 32 in honor of one of those legends. It has nothing to do with the original O.J. from USC, Orenthal James Simpson. Since fifth grade, Mayo has worn No. 32 in honor of former Michigan State and Los Angeles Lakers great Magic Johnson, the consummate team player.

Mayo scored a 29 on his ACT, which ranked him in the 95th percentile.

Asked about his role in the game he won with that 11-point outburst, Mayo managed to thank by name the players who set screens for him and delivered him timely passes, thanked by name reserves for “bringing energy,” praised the coach’s substitution patterns and thanked the crowd for the lift it gave the team. He did all that without seeming to go out of his way to do so, smoothly fitting it all into conversation, the way he smoothly fit 19 shot attempts into the flow of the game, never looking like a ball hog and seldom settling for a jumpshot.

Asked if he ever had played against any Kansas players, Mayo said he had in AAU ball and without hesitating reeled off their names.

“Just about everyone,” Mayo said. “(Brandon) Rush, (Mario) Chalmers, Sherron Collins, Darrell Arthur, (Sasha) Kaun, (Darnell) Jackson, just about all of them. They’re tremendous players. We’re happy to have the opportunity to bring them into our house and protect our building.”

(By the way, he pronounced Arthur’s first name correctly.)

Did he ever consider Kansas as a one-year stop on his way to the NBA?

“No sir,” Mayo said. “They already had some great guards in Chalmers and Robinson and Sherron Collins, Rush. USC is where I’m at, and I’m happy to be there.”

Mayo, part of a talented freshman class, doesn’t whine about the rule change that prohibited players from jumping directly to the NBA from high school.

“I think it’s good from a maturity standpoint and time management in college,” Mayo said. “It gives the student-athlete time to grow, instead of being so young and having so much money and not being able to grow with the college experience. The rules are the rules, you have to abide by them, and I’m happy to be here.”

Mayo said he had visited Los Angeles with his AAU team and with his high school team. He already has plans for how he’ll invest the millions he’ll make in the NBA and is aware that Magic Johnson, a Michigan State Spartan during his college days, has made a killing as a businessman investing in Southern California.

“The Trojan family is a great family to be a part of,” Mayo said. “L.A. is such a growing city. If you get ahold of some real estate here, I think it’s a great opportunity with so much going on.”

Mayo’s maturity as a basketball player belies his freshman label. He played pick-up basketball games in Los Angeles during the summer with Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Jason Kidd and “pretty much all of the Clippers,” he said.

He first was pictured and written about in Sports Illustrated as a seventh-grader, when he scored 24 points in his varsity high school basketball debut. He commuted from his Huntington, W.Va., home to a private school in Kentucky as a seventh- and eighth-grader because the rules there allowed him to play varsity ball. He spent the next three years playing in Cincinnati, teaming with Kansas State’s Bill Walker and twice winning Mr. Basketball in Ohio. Moving back home to play for Huntington High for his senior year, he led the team to a state title and had 41 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists in the title game.

He doesn’t play like a freshman in any way.

“With freshmen, in my opinion, it’s always been who plays the hardest because that’s the biggest adjustment,” Floyd said. “Figuring out they can’t rely on their talent, they have to compete, cut a little harder to get off the screen, set your guy up a little better, stay in your stance a little longer, stay between your guy and the basket, etc. O.J. was just always a little different. He played against the pros all summer. He has been challenged since he was in the seventh grade, and because of that there has been no real adjustment for him in terms of how hard he has to approach it and how he has to go play.”

Still, Mayo said, he has learned a lot about the game in his short time at USC. For example, he now takes pride in his defense.

“Yes sir,” he said. “I wasn’t the best defensive player coming into this year, and coach really gave me a defensive mind-set in practice, tells us to compete as much on the defensive end as the offensive end and that will give us more of a chance to win basketball games.”

Mayo said he hasn’t met Magic Johnson yet. What would he like to ask him?

“What would I ask him?” he echoed. “Maybe just pick his mind a little bit, ask him about his day. What was it like in his day? How was it playing with Kareem (Abdul-Jabbar) and James Worthy. How was it to compete against (Larry) Bird and Mike (Jordan). Just pick his mind a little bit.”

It takes a bright mind to pick a mind efficiently. Mayo sounded up to the challenge.