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Ned Seaton nseaton@themercury.com
If it weren't for Bob Huggins' homework, Kansas State — rather than Southern Cal — could be in the middle of a major scandal involving O.J. Mayo, according to a K-State assistant coach.
Brad Underwood told the Konza Rotary Club this morning that Mayo was on the phone with Huggins, "begging to come here" around the time of national letter-of-intent signing day a year ago. Huggins told him no, Underwood said, because he thought Mayo would get in trouble because of money funneled to him and a friend prior to enrolling in college.
That's the center of the scandal now surrounding Mayo, who played one year as a guard at USC and is now headed to the NBA. The NCAA is investigating.
Mayo, originally from Huntington, W.Va., was among the top recruits in the nation at the time. Huggins, also originally from West Virginia, had been recruiting him for years and appeared to have a good shot at bringing him to K-State. Publicly, Mayo said he chose USC over K-State.
But Underwood today indicated that Mayo was saying up to the last minute that he wanted to come to K-State to be with Huggins because of their long ties. Huggins, though, said, "We're not going to take you. You'll never pass," in reference to NCAA amateur clearinghouse rules.
"So it's no surprise that this is coming out now," Underwood said of the scandal. "We knew it."
The irony is that "nothing's going to happen to O.J. Mayo," Underwood said. "It's becoming Southern Cal's problem."
Underwood didn't blame USC; the phenomenon of money being funneled through agents to players in their youth is "impossible to control," he said.
But he did credit Huggins, who left K-State after one year to coach at West Virginia, with keeping the Wildcats out of the mess now enveloping USC. "It's a credit to Huggs that he did his due diligence."
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Somebody has put the fear of god into Huggins. Seems as if he would have grabbed him in a heartbeat at Cincinnati. I could be wrong.
Oh he badly wanted him at Cincy he was going to hire Dwaine Barnes as director of basketball OPS to get Walker and mayo. But then Mayo split with Barnes and went with Guillory.
My take is that Walker and Beasley probably aren't "clean" either and Huggins just decided Mayo was too obvious and it was far more likely that if they checked Mayo and ruled him not an amateur, they might check Walker and Beasley too.
FYI a spokesman for K State came and said the assistant coach was speaking hypothetically and that nobody at K State or formerly employed at K State(bob huggins) had any proof of any recruiting violations regarding OJ Mayo. note, ESPN and the KSU assistant coach never said a thing about RECRUITING violations, they said OJ Mayo wasn't an amateur.
So even the denial by the spokesperson completely avoided the subject. It was almost like hey don't come asking us about anything related to mayo we dont' know a thing.
What I find fascinating in this whole thing is how long is this story going to go on before USC coach Tim Floyd says ANYTHING? he hasnt' said a word.
You know for a kid that took a class at USC this year on media relations OJ Mayo is completely screwing himself everytime he opens his mouth.
Andy Katz had a story on Mayo yesterday where he said Mayo continues to deny he did anything wrong blah blah. Katz asked him why he thought Louis Johnson was lying about him then and he said I understand he's working on a book I assume that's why.
Katz asked him about Louis Johnson and Guillory and said when did you last speak to them(because of reports that Mayo had severed ties with Guillory). Mayo said he talks to Guillory off and on(didn't say we severed ties) and then said I haven't spoken to Lou, Louis, since January.
The next sentence in Katz's story to paraphrase is "during the ESPN Outside the Lines investigation of OJ Mayo, OTL shot video of Mayo, Guillory, and Louis Johnson talking outside the Galen Center(USC's gym) on March 7th. After several minutes talking they all got into Guillory's SUV and left together."
So now we have Mayo calling Katz on the cellphone Guillory gave him to deny he broke any rules, and then have him telling Katz he hasn't spoken to Johnson since January when ESPN has video of him speaking to Johnson 2 full months later. And apparently the famous story about him breaking off contact wtih Guillory isn't entirely true either since Mayo told Katz they speak off and on.
Seriously he needs to just stop talking to ESPN the more he does the deeper the hole he digs.
Just keeps getting worse for Mayo now the California Attorney Generals office is investigating whether Guillory committed fraud using the American Express card from the fake sickle cell charity.
article says it would probably be a misdemeanor for misuse of funds but if they actually find proof, and they have subpoena power, that proof will be available to the NCAA.
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