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Kevin O'Neill fired the student manager who drew a technical during USC's loss on Saturday after yelling at officials. Say what you will about Tim Floyd, but at least he would have spent money on his student "volunteers." [LA Times] More »
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Ah, January, when the talk turns from NCAA football sanctions to NCAA basketball sanctions. First up: USC. It's as predictable as the changing of the seasons. More »
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USC's athletic programs have been getting rightfully shit-winded by all of this O.J. Mayo mess in the last couple days (and, before that, Reggie Bush) but it'll be tough to find a more comprehensive list of the school's indiscretions during the Pete Carroll/Tim Floyd eras than the one put together by Bruins Nation. More »
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This whole O.J. Mayo affair is probably not surprising to anybody who has a healthy does of skepticism about heavily recruited college basketball players' long-term goals and their abilities to make sound life decisions. As soon as Mayo signed onto USC, it was pretty clear that this kid decided Southern California would be a better spot not to work on his game or his education, but to begin marketing O.J. Mayo: The Brand. More »
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"If your Wonderlic score is lower than the age of consent in your state, you may be a redneck." I'm not all that convinced that IQ testing is all that relevant when it comes to drafting NFL quarterbacks, but I will say this: If I needed a partner to diffuse a bomb, I'd pick LSU Louisville quarterback Brian Brohm before I'd choose USC's John David Booty. According to Mac Mirabile's annual look at the latest Wonderlic scores, Brohm got a 32 (excellent), while Booty scored a 14 (quite poor). More »
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First of all, kudos to the guy seated at the table on the right; watching cheerleaders plunge into a swimming pool while wearing a comical top hat is pretty much why we all went to college. And, hold it ... the cheerleader in the back there; that pose looks strikingly familiar. Yes, I thought so! Anyway, as the photos here prove, the USC Song Girls need very little prompting to shed their clothes, at least when it's for charity. More »
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Surprising no one, OJ Mayo announced yesterday that he's leaving USC to enter the NBA Draft. Hard to blame the guy; most mock drafts have him going in the top five. (Love that video preview for the Mock Draft, ESPN!) More »
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Southern California Trojans (21-11) vs. Kansas State Wildcats (20-11) More »
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1. At Guard, Super Dave Osborne. One of the keys to last season's surprising Sweet Sixteen run was then-freshman Daniel Hackett's aggressive tournament play: He was all over the place, grabbing boards, causing turnovers, ending Kevin Durant's college career earlier than expected. The dude doesn't know how to turn it off ... which has caused some problems this year. In late September during a pretty physical pickup game, he took an elbow to the face from O.J. Mayo (or did Mayo deck him?), which resulted in his jaw being broken in three places and having to be wired shut. He came back six weeks later, happy only to need a protective mouthpiece. ("A mask, it shows weakness," Hackett said, sounding like an ancient kung-fu master.) Then at the end of January, he suffered a stress fracture in his lower back while diving for a ball in a game against Arizona. He was supposed to be done for the year, but he was back playing a month later. More »
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As you might know, hip-hop whiz kid Lil' Romeo will be attending the University of Southern California next year on a basketball scholarship. This despite his, you know, not being very good at all. The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the oddity of Lil Romeo's "recruitment,", and it tells you pretty much all you need to know about the future direction of college basketball. More »
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Not in time for Christmas, darn it, but sure to make for cozy fireside reading nonetheless; the new Reggie Bush book, Don Yaeger's Tarnished Heisman, is here. Is this the Game of Shadows of college football? There's apparently enough evidence of financial impropriety involving Bush at USC to make that case (Adam Rose of the Los Angeles Times reviews the whole thing here). And like the Bonds steroids issue, none of it is totally unexpected. It now just depends on how far the NCAA and the BCS are willing to go with their own investigations; it's kind of sobering to realize that It all could end with Bush losing his Heisman, and USC forfeiting its national championship. More »
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The question we've been discussing with fellow Illini fans over the last 12 hours or so; was it really worth it? Was it worth watching our Illini be absolutely destroyed in the Rose Bowl yesterday? Wouldn't we all have been better off if Illinois had a more competitive, fun, matchup against Florida in that Capital One Bowl? It took us most of the night, but we think we have our answer. More »
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Yep, it's really happening: Illinois — Illinois! — is in the Rose Bowl. The game they play on New Year's Day. That one. Seriously. Zook in Pasadena. Zooooooooook. More »
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We haven't checked in on Brady Quinn in a while: How's our favorite flashdancer doing? More »
]]> http://deadspin.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=314988&view=rss&microfeed=true Scary times with the USC plane in South Bend. [Sports By Brooks] More »
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Chris Washington is a senior at USC with a GPA of 3.50. And even though he had several of his fraternity brothers rooting him on in the front row during the game show Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader? last night, he still seemed a bit confused. Below are a list of the questions that he got wrong: More »
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Dan Shanoff writes a weekly college football column for Deadspin. Email him to let him know what you think. More »
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It is good to know that USC fans, with their team continuing to steamroll opponents, taking a moment to support the underdog. More »
]]> http://deadspin.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=304315&view=rss&microfeed=true The Daily Trojan newspaper only likes people digging up stories when it's about someone other than their assistant coaches. [The Daily Trojan] More »
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Hell hath no fury like a UCLA fan with some dirt on someone in the USC football program. The Internets are abuzz today with the news that Todd McNair, USC's running backs coach, was convicted accused (and pleaded out) of dogfighting and animal cruelty back in the 1990s. The Los Angeles Times did up the story today, and the whole thing was started by Bruins Nation yesterday. Well played. More »
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You might remember old Southern California quarterback Todd Marinovich as the guy who was absolutely ruined by his hard-driving father. Once considered the "robo QB," Marinovich's dad famously didn't allow his son fast food and claimed he wanted to produce the "perfect" quarterback. As kids tend to do, Marinovich rebelled in a big way, falling deep into drugs and crapping out in his pro career. And now those drugs have him in some serious trouble. More »
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How exciting it must be, to be 20 years old, a sophomore in college and on the cover of Sports Illustrated's College Football Preview edition. (SI has the Illini going 7-5!) What a thrill. What an honor. More »
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We've already shared with you our joy that Michael Jordan's son is going to be playing for our Illini this season. He's not all that good, but he's not costing a scholarship, and it'll make sure his dad impregnates a few co-eds. It'll be fun. More »
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Since not every recruit can be OJ Mayo and just show up at your doorstep, USC coach Tim Floyd has had to get creative over the last two years. So, for the second season in a row, he has offered a full scholarship to an eighth grader. More »
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Over the weekend, the University of Southern California athletics department hosted a fundraiser for physically challenged athletes. Ostensibly, the highlight was supposed to be a swim race between USC coach Pete Carroll and, uh, physically challenged athlete Will Carroll Ferrell, but it turns out the real draw were the bikini-clad USC Song Girls. (A full photo gallery is right here. More »
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North Carolina Tar Heels (30-6) vs. Southern California Trojans (25-11) More »
]]> http://deadspin.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=246480&view=rss&microfeed=true So on Saturday night, incoming star freshman O.J. Mayo, who was no longer in trouble over that marijuana business, played his final game as a high school player. How's it go? Well, he earned a technical foul and was thrown out of the game. More »
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USC Trojans (23-11) vs. Arkansas Razorbacks (21-13) More »
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1. This is Hollywood after all. The Trojans play on Jim Sterkel Court at the new Galen Center. Who's Jim Sterkel? Some guy who played for two seasons at 'SC in the '50s and averaged fewer than 10 points a game. So who decided to name it after him? Only the university knows: The $5-million donation for the naming rights was sent by an anonymous high-school friend of Sterkel's who stipulated that his identity never be revealed. Schmaltz-meister columnist Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times tracked down Anonymous, who explained that Sterkel had been his role model for living a good life, his mediocre sports career notwithstanding. A friendly, churchgoing type, Sterkel developed testicular cancer in adulthood, which eventually killed him, but which didn't stop him from writing Anonymous to console him about his own son's losing battle with leukemia. ("I'll never forget that he took the time out of his own life during his final days to do this for me, to try to inspire my life even when he was losing his own life," Anonymous said.) Between the tear-jerking sentiments and mysterious nature of the donation, it's a miracle Fox Faith isn't developing a film about the whole thing right now. More »
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On the list of Poor Internets Decisions By High-Profile College Athletes, we have to say, starting up a Facebook group devoted to "White Power" as a "joke" has to be rather high up there. More »
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Boy. Not only are tempers still flaring over current BCS issues, but there are still some 2005 grudges that seem to be on the front burner. USC blog Boy From Troi, for instance, couldn't help taking a shot at Texas when the latter's marketing dept. sent out an e-mail promoting the arrival of their new Alamo Bowl gear. More »
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So why did Southern California lose to UCLA last week? Not because of a stout Bruins defense, or a somewhat green Trojans squad cracking under the pressure. Nope, they lost because coach Pete Carroll programmed his team to lose. More »
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You know, we have to give credit where credit is due: We have never considered UCLA Bruins fans among the most passionate and violent in the land of collegiate sports, but, apparently, we were mistaken. After the Bruins' win over USC last Saturday, a group of Bruins fans ganged up and attacked a Trojans fan, ultimately taking out his eye with a broken beer bottle. More »
]]> http://deadspin.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=219782&view=rss&microfeed=true The M Zone takes a moment away from screaming at the heavens and cursing Allah to bring us this video, from the USC-UCLA game Saturday — way to step up, Trojans, by the way — and the famous Unable To Figure Out When Is, In Fact, The Correct Time To Cheer cheerleader. She has a tendency to strike during the most damaging Trojans losses, it appears; we fully expect to see this woman in straight-to-video movies, shot in the Valley, in which she shows up to jump and yell every time the hero's girlfriend dies or the villain unleashes one of his henchmen to terrorize a small, defenseless child. "Go Leatherface!" More »
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An aggressively active weekend of college football has sussed a few things out, and before you know it, we'll be fully ensconced in the morass of meaningless bowls hosted by dying dot-coms. (Our two favorite bowl games this year: The San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl and R&L Carriers New Orleans Bowl. We are pleased to live in an era where a local credit union sponsors a national bowl game.) More »
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Like a lot of people, we're sure, when we initially saw Yahoo! Sports' report — you know, typing the "!" after "Yahoo" must feel a little silly when you're trying to report a serious story — about Reggie Bush allegedly receiving improper gifts from agents when he was at USC, we thought, "Jeez, they're still on this? They know he's in the NFL now, right?" More »
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Boi From Troy has dug up an interesting little nugget: The schedule poster for the upcoming Southern California football team contains the word "ENCORE!" as its theme. More »
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We did a very brief bit on this a couple of days ago, but we didn't give it nearly enough of a heads-up, since, frankly, it's one of the best examples of fan subterfuge we've ever seen. More »
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Surprising no one on this planet — though we hear some Klingons were just shocked — Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush announced today that he will forgo his final season of eligibility and enter the NFL Draft. More »
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What they're saying on the Texas and USC blogs, the morning after ... More »
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