College Career
Mayo had given Kansas State a soft verbal commitment to play for them, but retracted it when head coach Bob Huggins announced he would take the same position at West Virginia. Frank Martin, by whom Mayo was recruited, was named head coach. Former teammate at North College Hill High School Bill Walker opted to stay and play for Martin.
Mayo enrolled at the University of Southern California in Summer 2007, taking two classes. While waiting for the season to begin, he began playing pickup basketball against current NBA players Kobe Bryant, Sam Cassell, Kevin Garnett, Mike Dunleavy, Jr., D. J. Augustin, Jason Kidd, Adam Morrison, and J. J. Redick.
In the 2008 Pacific-10 Conference Men's Basketball Tournament, the Trojans lost to UCLA, featuring Kevin Love and Russell Westbrook, in the semi-finals. Both Mayo and Love were selected to the All Pac-10 tournament team. In his NCAA Tournament debut with the Trojans, Mayo scored 20 points as USC was beaten by Kansas State and freshman Michael Beasley and old high school teammate Bill Walker.
Mayo did not return for his sophomore season, opting to instead enter the 2008 NBA draft.
Read more about this topic: O. J. Mayo
Famous quotes containing the words college career, college and/or career:
“In looking back over the college careers of those who for various reasons have been prominent in undergraduate life ... one cannot help noticing that these men have nearly always shown from the start an interest in the lives of their fellow students. A large acquaintance means that many persons are dependent on a man and conversely that he himself is dependent on many. Success necessarily means larger responsibilities, and responsibilities mean many friends.”
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“Whether lawyer, politician or executive, the American who knows what’s good for his career seeks an institutional rather than an individual identity. He becomes the man from NBC or IBM. The institutional imprint furnishes him with pension, meaning, proofs of existence. A man without a company name is a man without a country.”
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