O.J. Mayo came to USC with such promise. He was a man — or a babe, if you will — of mystery. No one on the West Coast had any idea who he was. Suddenly there was word he had chosen USC to be his team.

That must have come as something of a shock to Trojans coach Tim Floyd, who had heard of Mayo, but was so sure his school had so little chance of landing him that he didn't even bother recruiting him.

Fact of the matter is, Mayo wouldn't have even bothered with USC — or college at all, for that matter — if the NBA hadn't passed a rule banning players going right from high school to the pros. They had to play at least one season in college, so Mayo deemed USC to be his choice. Or at least his people did.

Remember O.J.'s people? Coaches and relatives who guarded Mayo as if they were the Secret Service. They wouldn't let but just a chosen few from the media talk to him. That all seems like a long time ago now.

Mayo was supposed to be the one-and-done recruit to end all one-and-done recruits. Who knows? He might even out-LeBron Lebron.

Well, two-thirds of the way through the season, O.J. Mayo isn't quite what he was advertised to be.

Sure, he's got a decent scoring average at a little more than 20 points per game. But as the San Bernardino Sun recently pointed out, USC is 7-7 when Mayo leads the Trojans in scoring — and 8-1 when he doesn't. The Sun reports Mayo has more missed shots — 209 — than anyone in the Pacific-10 Conference. Not real surprising since he's taken 375 shots, more than any other two of his teammates combined.

There seem to be a lot of people overwhelmed by how good Mayo is, but they shouldn't be — at least not yet anyway.

He has not made USC into the national power everyone seemed to think he would. The Trojans haven't even made it into the Top 20 this season and are not even in the Top 25.

Sure, the Trojans upset UCLA and have a chance today to sweep the sixth-ranked Bruins. But it's UCLA that has the best freshman in Los Angeles, not USC.

Kevin Love holds that title. His Bruins are 2 while Mayo's Trojans are 15-8.

O.J. Mayo certainly has the potential to be everything said he was going to be. But it won't come this season. He was smart enough to pick a quality school like USC. Let's see if he's smart enough to stay for his sophomore year. That would be the best for him and the Trojans.

— Jim Carlisle is a staff writer for The Star. E-mail address: jcarlisle@VenturaCountyStar.com.