USC Bans Basketball Team From Postseason Over Recruitment Of O.J. Mayo

Read more at our USC blog, Conquest Chronicles. This game was the first for the Trojans after the school decided to ban the school from postseason play this season because of NCAA violations committed during the recruitment of O.J. Mayo.

January 7, 2010 - Stanford, CA (Sports Network) - Jarrett Mann hit a free throw with 10.6 seconds left and the Stanford Cardinal hung on for a 54-53 win over the USC Trojans in Pac-10 play Maples Pavilion.

Jeremy Green led the way for Stanford (7-7, 1-1 Pac-10) with 17 points, while Landry Fields had 14 points and eight rebounds.

Dwight Lewis turned in 22 points for USC (10-5, 2-1), which had its eight-game win streak snapped, and Alex Stepheson added 13 points and eight boards.

Stanford shot 48.1 percent from the floor in the first half and grabbed a 31-28 lead at the intermission.

After Mann hit the go-ahead free throw, Stanford came up with several stops of USC in the final moments to survive for the one-point victory.

On the night, the Cardinal made good on 45.8 percent of its attempts from the field.

On Sunday, USC self-imposed sanctions on their basketball program as punishment for NCAA violations committed during O.J. Mayo's recruitment. The school said it will not participate in the 2009-10 postseason, will forfeit a scholarship in both this season and next and will impose recruiting restrictions, limiting the number of days from 130 to 110. So, all better now in Los Angeles, right? Uh, not so fast. 

SB Nation's Conquest Chronicles points out that the NCAA has yet to weigh in on any of this, which means the worst is probably still coming for USC. 

This is just the beginning. I have never heard of the NCAA accepting ANY self-imposed sanctions without having some official say. They have not done that......yet.

It would also appear that USC knows something is coming...

The basketball program's self-imposed punishment suggested that USC knew the NCAA was about to take action, said the director of a compliance department at a major university familiar with such investigations.  "If they're doing all that, they know something's coming," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "They know they're going to have their day in front of the [NCAA's] committee on infractions, and they're preparing."

Conquest Chronicles goes on to address the speculation that USC basketball is getting punished to protect the university's football program, referencing the Maurice Clarett-Ohio State fiasco, in which basketball head coach Jim O'Brien was fired for making a payment to the family of a former recruit, while the football program went unscathed. But USC ultimately has little ties to Reggie Bush and his situation, so perhaps the better issue to be raised here is why the current team is being punished for something that happened with Mayo, over two years ago.

Unfortunately, like it or not, that is just the way it goes...it isn't right but it is not like they didn't know this was coming so I am a little surprised that there is any shock over all of this.

Mayo and Floyd are gone and to me they are the only people that matter. They will answer to no one. Gibson, DeRozan, and Hackett have moved on and had really nothing to do with it.

I feel bad for these kids but there is nothing we can do.

Welcome to the world of the NCAA.