Dmince

By the way if SJ gets drafted that would be HUGE

a good IM fraternity player i meant to say. You were good. Collin sucked though

Velcro, You were a IM fraternity ball player in college. But the more you talk about basketball the more I am shocked. Pittsnoggle in the first round? HUH?!?

Terry how would you know how much rooms cost in vegas. You crashed in mine for free you mooch. Stay away from the black jack this time.

I posted this twice previously: McCullum must be an awesome guy. I mean I don't know him, but there are all these articles about how he has this great character, but they never really get into any specifics or testimonials. I mean this article goes on and on about it, but there are no stories, examples, etc. Does anyone know the types of things he is involved in the community with or have any other insight? Can anyone, maybe some of you guys who say you know him, answer it for me? I am really intrigued to here about the types of things that compelled this article.

McCullum must be an awesome guy. I mean I don't know him, but there are all these articles about how he has this great character, but they never really get into any specifics or testimonials. I mean this article goes on and on about it, but there are no stories, examples, etc. Does anyone know the types of things he is involved in the community with or have any other insight?

McCullum must be an awesome guy. I mean I don't know him, but there are all these articles about how he has this great character, but they never really get into any specifics or testimonials. I mean this article goes on and on about it, but there are no stories, examples, etc. Does anyone know the types of things he is involved in the community with or have any other insight?

hmmm

a "basketball school"? Did St louis even make the sweet 16 while woolard was there? Have they ever? How often did they make the tournament, besides they one year they had Larry Hughes? Just because all they have is basketball, does not mean they are a "basketball school". For example, Stetson is not a basketball school. Kentucky is a basketball school, Georgetown is a basketball school, etc. They have won championships and have tradition. SLU is not what I consider a basketball school.

The guy who wrote that thing is the biggest fan ever holy ****

great win. Seniors stepped up big

3 of them: verdejo, howard, and the kid from kissimmee. I'm not sure how good gantsberry really is though.

I own a 9 acre piece of land over there, they should make me an offer.

take that back only 30% or so will boo him

From the people I have talked to, I think that half of our fans will boo McCullum and half will cheer, when they announce his name it will be a contest between the two groups. I for one do not think you should ever boo your own team during a game- maybe afterwards, but not during- you basically take away the home court advantage by doing that. Then you are talking about 3,000 UConn fans who will be at the game to see the best team in the country. When you combine that with our own discontent- This could get ugly quick. It will be really interesting to see how the players respond to all of this. I don't think their will be too many signs, being that the game is on the local networks and they won't give much pub to the whole huggins things. You will have a few people running a round and yelling stuff, and if the game gets out of hand quick (i.e. down 20 in the first half or down 30+ at any point, the boo birds will come out in full force). I am actually kind of nervous about this one for some reason- can't really figure out why. Oh well.

Is going to be very, very, very interesting to say the least....

You are a naive young man Mike. Good night.

There are many things (you should really know this Mike) discussed behind closed doors at universities, not just involving athletics, where "illegal" components are part of the deal. This is actually legal. It is as easy as DW asking him if he has any recruits lined up and him saying, "yes I have so and so". And then someone will contact so and so's family. Happens all the time when new coaches are hired. It is a badly kep secret that Mayo is following Huggins. It was even talked about in either SI or ESPN the mag I forget. This is really a special kid, read the article it is enough to make you salivate: OJ Mayo | Heir to the Throne Words. Pat Cassidy The teenage girls at the McDonald’s drive-thru window bust out in schoolgirl giggles when I ask them if they’ve ever heard of OJ Mayo. “Yeah, we know that boy. Are you kidding? Everybody knows OJ,†says one through an embarrassed smile. She leans out the window and points beyond a busy intersection of a Cincinnati suburb. “His school’s right down that road. He’s easy to find. He’s probably in the basketball gym right now.†No, not in the gym; at least not this second. A handful of players are there, shooting around after practice, but they can’t be who I’m looking for. They look like kids. None of them has the stature – or the aura – to be The Next LeBron. A lanky baby-faced student dressed in a North College Hill High School uniform approaches; he seems to know why I’m here. “’Mechi,†as he would later introduce himself, leads me down a back staircase through a web of dimly lit, paint-chipped NCH Trojan crimson-colored hallways and worn locker rooms until we reach an unmarked door. I find the King’s heir in a grungy equipment room. The 6-6, 17-year-old OJ Mayo is sitting in the dark among football pads and lacrosse gear, strewn, scattered and piled about him. He’s hunkered close to a TV, remote in hand, studying a high school highlight tape of Jason Kidd. The light from the screen flicks pale, cool blue on OJ’s face while he plays, rewinds and plays again a particular series over and over – a collage of clips of Kidd running his high school fast break. Stealing. Running. Passing. Scoring. Dominating. A few feet from OJ rests a swell of unopened recruiting mail – Kentucky, Kansas, Arizona, Georgia Tech and Michigan – and those are just some of the logos peeking out from the top of the heap. Chances are, there will be no college for Ovinton J’Anthony Mayo. When he’s asked about the possibility of him playing even a little college ball before heading to the NBA, he just smiles. He knows. Six years ago, I traveled to a place much like North College Hill searching for the next Jordan. I stood in another bandbox gym in Ohio, in the fall of 2000, watching a 15-year old freshman named LeBron James loft jumpers during his lunchtime recess. It was two full years before the rest of the basketball world would really take notice, jumpstarting the transformation of the kid into The King. Back then, James was innocent and unguarded. During the day I spent with him he was just as excited to talk about how and he and his friends were going to meet some girls at the movie theater later that night as he was about his NBA dreams. Yet LeBron was still mature for his age and seemed to know then he was destined for greater things, despite being years away from tooling to and from high school in his H2. In many ways, OJ is a lot like that younger LeBron. Personable, poised, smart (check his 3.3 GPA) and already media savvy. And despite having already been in the media spotlight for years, OJ, like the neophyte LeBron, can comes across as shockingly innocent at times. When OJ finds out that Dime is based in New York City, he seems genuinely amazed at the notion of being able to get anywhere in the city, or any of its boroughs, by subway. “So it’s possible to live in Brooklyn and still have a girl in the Bronx?†he asks in earnest, and he’s pleased to learn that it is. OJ and his family have had him on a path to the League since middle school. It’s a strategy with an endgame designed to culminate in the charismatic, wildly talented sophomore going straight to the NBA, the likely No. 1 pick in the 2007 NBA Draft, and reaping all of the endorsement and sneaker dollars that come with it; the building blocks of his own LeBron-like empire. “OJ has a chance, if he grows three or four more inches and continues to get even stronger, to be among the greatest of the great. I really believe that,†says Sonny Vacarro, Reebok’s Director of Grassroots Basketball. “LeBron was the first player born into an NBA-ready body and OJ’s on the right track. Right now, at worst, he’s an absolutely tremendous player and I think a future NBA All-Star many times over.†Mayo’s current momentum is undeniable. As of press time, he’s averaging 28.3 points (45 percent from three), 8 boards and 7 dimes a night for the best high school team in Ohio. His name has already reached the highest peaks of the basketball world. He’s a high school sophomore with Baron Davis, Carmelo Anthony, Drew Gooden and yes, LeBron James, programmed into his cell phone. In James, Mayo has found a friend and mentor. “I mean, who’s had it worse with this kind of stuff than LeBron has?†Mayo says. “We talk once a week and he’s always telling me, ‘You’re the truth. Keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll be where I am.’ It means a lot coming from him. It’s great having him to go to when I need advice.†“I know what kind of pressure OJ is facing,†LeBron says. “All I tell him is that I’m here for him. I’m trying to help guide him and lead him in the right direction. He’ll be alright though. He’s a good kid.†Baron Davis lights up when asked about Mayo. “OJ is my dawg,†he says. Davis says that he calls OJ all the time to ask about his grades and to keep up with what’s going on in his life. He says Mayo has an “open invitation†to chill at his house whenever he wants. Mayo’s presence is making enough waves that David Stern has even mentioned him in interviews. OJ, for his part, had no idea that the Commissioner had spoken about him. “Really?†he asks incredulously. “I didn’t know that. I didn’t know he knew my name.†Born in Huntington, W.Va., Mayo commuted across the West Virginia/Kentucky border to attend Rose Hill Christian School in Ashland, Ky, for grade school. In Kentucky, a high school athlete does not have to be in ninth grade to play for his school’s varsity team, so as a seventh-grader, OJ was not only good enough to make the varsity squad, but he also averaged 23 ppg for the season. Suddenly, the college letters began to stuff Mayo’s mailbox. “I’ll never forget the first one,†OJ says. “Seventh grade. Marshall University.†As an eighth-grader, he averaged 20 ppg for the varsity and was a first-team all-state selection. By the end of that season, local hype in Huntington was making life difficult– people hanging outside their house, reporters lying in wait to ask questions – so OJ and his family decided it would be best for him to move to Cincinnati and live with his grandfather and AAU coach, Dwaine Barnes. The thought was that in a larger city, OJ could play against better competition and maybe not be such a big fish in such a small pond. Not quite. His transfer in April of his eighth grade year to NCH created so much buzz that local news crews broadcast his enrollment on live TV. His freshman year did not disappoint as OJ, playing the point, scored close to 30 points per game and averaged a triple-double over the last 15 games of the season. His sophomore campaign has been much the same way, where he’s done most of his work from the shooting guard position. Along with best friend from childhood and fellow sophomore prodigy, Bill Walker, OJ’s fearsome NCH team has been smashing opponents by close to 45 points per game and they haven’t won any game by less than 28 points. As of press time, OJ’s season high in points was 56 against Lockland High School – in just three quarters of play – and at 19-1, his NCH team is the No. 1-ranked team in the state. “Every team we play, they come into the game and their main goal is to somehow try to stop OJ,†says NCH head coach Jamie Mahaffey. “And the funny thing is that he’d rather pass first than shoot anyway. Just because he averages 30, doesn’t mean he’s a gunner. He just happens to be able to score really, really easily.†OJ’s points can come in furious volleys; it’s like he decides when and how much he’s going to score. He breaks defenders down off the bounce or simply overpowers them, able to absorb contact in the air and finish. He’s strong enough to drop fadeaways off glass from well outside the lane or spot up for three. He is murderous on the break – when Mayo and Walker get out running it looks like wolves have been let loose in a high school gym. Those breaks, more often than not, end up in ferocious dunks. When opponents talk about OJ, it’s almost always with a certain sense of awe. “He’s very, very tough to guard because he’s so athletic,†says McDonald’s All-American guard and UNC recruit Bobby Frasor, a senior at Brother Rice High School in Chicago who matched up with Mayo at last summer’s Reebok ABCD Camp. “He’s also got these huge hands so his control is great. He can do a lot in the air too. There was one play down there where he jump-stopped and did a 360 in the air to make that jumper. It was amazing.†“He’s so strong that the first problem is just finding someone who can even begin to deal with him on defense,†says Ed Heintschel, head coach at Toldeo St. John’s High School, ranked No. 3 in the state of Ohio when they played – and lost to – North College Hill early on in the season. “He does things that you just don’t see on this level. I’m talking about stuff like catching the ball and shooting it from well beyond the top of the key all in one motion. I’ve been coaching here for 26 years and we’ve traveled all over playing the country’s best players and teams and OJ is right at the top of the best I’ve ever faced. “Put it this way – you have to see him to believe him.†And they have. People turn out en masse to see Mayo and his North College Hill Trojans. Every game they play is to packed, standing-room only gyms in all parts of Ohio and Northern Kentucky. And many times after games, Mayo stays for an hour or more to sign autographs and to pose for pictures with fans. His return to Huntington this season for a game against Parkersburg South High School caused such frenzy that it was described by the Huntington Herald-Dispatch as “what it must have been like for the Beatles upon their first return to their hometown of Liverpool, England.†That night, hundreds of the estimated 3,500 fans in attendance waited in line for OJ’s autograph after watching Mayo scored 27 points, hand out eight assists and crush the home team, 106-66. The Jason Kidd film session complete, Mayo rises and glides to NCH’s gritty weight room to lift – his second such workout of the day. OJ and his grandfather live across the street from the high school, allowing Mayo to often times arrive at the gym by 6 a.m. to get up 500 jumpers and work through drills. After school, it’s practice with the team, usually followed by staying late to run sprints, work more on his game or weight training. It’s not uncommon for OJ to get home at 10 or 11 o’clock at night to do homework and keep up the GPA. Even with the high stakes – the potential millions on the table - is such a rigorous schedule a little much for a high school sophomore? Maybe. When we visited with Mayo, he was struggling with a pulled muscle that his team trainer believed to be a result of his working too hard. “The trainer asked me, ‘Aren’t you afraid you’re going to get burnt out?’†OJ says. “And I just said, ‘No. If I am working too hard, God will let me know. God will make me slow down.’ And maybe this was it. It’s just that I want all of it so bad… I have to succeed. I cannot fail.†This is his blessing and his curse. He’s a teenager with a multi-million dollar job being dangled in front of his face, a 17-year old soul trapped in a vehicle that can lift up his entire family with the always overriding “I cannot fail†constantly being whispered in his ear, making him afraid to let up. While Mayo has his eyes on the NBA prize, there are scores of characters out there with designs on him, looking for a piece of OJ and his future. “I’m really just doing my best to always be aware, to always be responsible,†OJ says. “And to be honest, it’s not really that hard. I keep a small circle of people around me who I know that I can trust and I keep it at that. “I can usually tell the people who are trying to give you stuff for ‘free.’ I’m like, ‘Come on, nothing’s for free in this world.’†“It’s easier for us to deal with all of that stuff during the high school season than it is during the summer,†Coach Mahaffey says. “Come summertime, it’s much easier for people to come into contact with him.†Despite the efforts of OJ and his circle, it’s impossible to completely shut out all of the game’s hustlers. “We were all a little freaked out the first time an agent called my mom’s job a while back,†Mayo says. “He was like, ‘Is everything good? Do you need any bills paid?’ “After that guy called my mom, I asked ’Bron for some advice on how to handle this kind of stuff and he said not to even answer the phone.†The Lebron James comparison is one that OJ hears constantly, and he seems to relish it. “Who wouldn’t be cool with being compared to LeBron?†says OJ when asked if he ever tires of having his name linked to James’. James is only an NBA sophomore – is the basketball world ready for another LeBron? “I think we all needed a clearing out space,†Vacarro says. “LeBron was so special, that it’s been unfair to compare kids to him. But with OJ, when it’s time for him, even though LeBron James will only be 24 or 25 years old, we’ll need the next LeBron James. “Within [OJ’s] class there are some great, great players like Edwin Rios (Miami Sr. High School, Fla.) and Taylor King (Santa Ana Mater Dei, Calif.). Whoever makes it through all of these guys and ends up on top? There’s a lot of money to be made. LeBron showed that a 20-year old can carry a brand. People don’t realize that Michael Jordan was 22 when he started with Nike. Even a guy out of high school like Kobe Bryant grew into that role.†OJ Mayo is in the final hours of any kind of existence that remotely resembles that of a teenager. The window is closing fast and the onset of full-blown OJ Mania and big business is imminent. I’m shooting around with OJ after his weight workout and joke with him that the girls at McDonald’s got giddy when his name came up. “Oh yeah?†he says, not taking his eyes off the rim while he lines up a jumper, clearly trying to play it cool. After a few seconds he can’t take it anymore. “So seriously, what did they say about me? Good stuff?†he asks with a hopeful smile. Maybe there’s still some time left for OJ to be a kid after all.

You are crazy if you think there are no assurances being inquired of. This guy will generate millions of dollars for whichever University he decides- do you think no one is asking about that?

This is really just as much about OJ Mayo as Huggins. OJ Mayo would be the #1 pick in the draft in two years if not for the new NBA rule requiring a year of college. Now, he will go to college for a year, and then be the #1 pick. Next year when he is a Senior in HS, he will get just as much pub as Lebron did. He is really that good. THIS IS LIKE LEBRON or KOBE GOING TO COLLEGE FOR A YEAR!! Think about what that would mean for USF: A Jordan Brand OJ Mayo USF jersey sold everywhere in the freaking country. Incredible National television exposure- ESPN markets stars, look at all the freaking JJ Reddick and Adam Morrison Exposure. There would be so much freaking hysteria surrounding his one year tour of college basketball that we be would on TV as much as DUKE. A USF Bull as the #1 pick! or at least a top 3 pick. HE REALLY IS THAT GOOD. A USF Bull as a perrenial NBA all star. SOLD OUT SUN DOME- they are moving his games to college arenas now and he is only a Junior. His team is averaging 6000 fans a game!!! Point being that any discussions going on have to be involving OJ Mayo. If there are assurances that he is coming with Huggy, which everyone in the national media seems to think is the case, than Huggy isn't even really the story. Imagine Lebron or Kobe balling at USF for one season. If you have the chance to get the next guy like that I wonder how you turn it down. WOW.

No comment from DW? Interesting...

Interesting thing about snyder is that his base salary was 190k but incentives let him get potentially get up to a mil. If we bring in a new coach that is the type of contract we need to put on the table

no big sweat is Greg Fry, offensive line coach

OJ Mayo in a Bulls Uniform is an incredible thought.

tie with the football team for amount of wins this season?