It’s been an up and down week for the USC Trojans. On one hand, their basketball team has continued their resurgence, reaching the final of the PAC 10 Tournament, where they’ll face Oregon. On the other hand, their athletes are showing some real piss-poor judgement.

Yesterday, I criticized five USC football players for their membership in a sketchy Facebook group. And now, their big-time basketball commitment OJ Mayo is getting into trouble. Mayo was charged for possession of marijuana after being pulled over in West Virginia, where the cop was likely spooked at the sight of black people. The driver of the Cadillac had a small amount of marijuana on him. Police also found some weed stashed in a pair of sneakers in the backseat.

Everyone that has seen Mayo play love his ability. But this doesn’t seem like a very good situation. His off the court problems are a bit troubling, especially with the way he’s being marketed. He was suspended earlier in the season for bumping a referee. While the referee may have overreacted to what looked like a nudge, it’s still poor judgement on his part.

Mayo will likely put in a great freshman season at USC before jumping ship for the NBA. He can definitely help USC’s resurgence on the court but his antics off the court may plague the program. It’s saying something when Mayo was only recruited hard by USC, Kansas State, and Florida. Where’s North Carolina? Ohio State? There may be more to Mayo’s character than what we’ve heard.

The following people are jackasses. Clay Matthews, David Buhler, Brian Cushing, Dan Deckas, and Dallas Sartz. Why? Because they’re too dumb to realize that by playing football at the University of Southern California, everything they say or do is magnified.

These five players have been caught up in some controversy for creating a group on Facebook called “White Nation.” The graphic for the club is a black baby being handcuffed.

“This group is not for the faint of heart,” read the group’s description. “All members are athletes of Caucasion (sic) descent. DISCLAIMER: In no way are the following memebers (sic) intolerant of others, we are just doing our duty of protecting the Arian (sic) brotherhood.”

Now I’m not going to ask readers to send these five guys hateful Facebook messages for being racists. Sources say that “White Power” is an inside joke among USC football players. Joke or not, it’s not a very smart call. Sartz is one of the leaders of the team and for anyone not in on the joke (I’d imagine every person on Facebook minus the football players), it sends a pretty bad message about the team.

Here’s some things to remember. If you’re naive enough to think that this group wouldn’t cause a stir, you’re all idiots. If you’re as proud as your white brotherhood as the group insists, you might want to spell Aryan and Caucasian correctly. What’s next for this school? To quote a wise commenter on Deadspin: “In a related story, your new Trojan point guard, Derek Vinyard!”

A University of Southern California hockey goalie seemed to take exception at the actions of the referees in his game. Mickey Meyer did the only thing he could possibly have done. Dropped his pants, showed the refs his bare ass and pretended to ride his hockey stick like a horse.

Just imagine you’re at a hockey game, and you see the goalie just suddenly, during the middle of a referee conference, do that. I don’t think I could think of anything more hilarious than that. I also can’t even think of what the goalie was possibly thinking. He gets pissed at some questionable calls and so decides to make a mockery of the game. What the hell does that solve?

He took the actions of Randy Moss and multiplied them by about 20. It’s just too bad Joe Buck wasn’t calling this game, his head probably would have exploded. And we can’t disregard the pretending the hockey stick was a horse, the part of the story that gets me the most is that Meyer didn’t just pretend to ride the horse, he included the bare ass slapping along with it.

Congrats to Meyer, he may play in a sport that no one cares about, but he has earned a stop as one of the greatest human beings of all time. We’ll choose to ignore the fact that he was ticketed for lewdness and ejected from the game, and focus on the comical aspects of his actions.

Because of the monopoly Rivals.com and Scout.com have on the recruiting process, it’s pretty difficult to get free coverage of National Signing Day. It’s a big day, since we see more and more true freshmen make a huge impact every year. But in the end, it’s more of the same. The Top 15 recruiting classes are from schools you’d generally expect.

The top five classes are Florida, Tennessee, USC, Texas, and LSU. However, most people feel SC’s class is the elite one because of the 6 five star recruits on the commitment list. Recruiting to USC is probably as hard as picking up a phone. Ever since Reggie Bush’s commitment, countless elite prospects have followed. What’s not to like? Good weather, a good education (cause that’s a biggie for athletes), and a winning tradition.

If you’re not an SC fan, you hate them even more when Signing Day comes around. Come on, does USC really need two more five stars at running back and wide receiver? They’ve also added five stars at linebacker and defensive end. USC won the Rose Bowl after replacing nearly their Heisman Trophy backfield. I’m still skeptical over Booty behind center but SC continues to have ridiculous talent around him.

Florida is back to dominance both on the field and on the recruiting trail. The BCS National Championship gave them even more momentum. With Miami and Florida State both down, Florida is becoming the only destination for the great Florida recruits. Florida received commitments from 19 players with a four star rating or higher. FSU and Miami received only 17, with just one of them rated at five stars.

I was preparing to say Noel Devine had committed to West Virginia to form an unreal backfield with Pat White and Steve Slaton. But now, that doesn’t appear to be the case. The former adopted son of Deion Sanders, Devine may not be signing with anybody. I think Devine needs football more than football needs Devine. Without it, who knows what he’ll be doing. He already has four kids and some run-ins with the law. For his sake, I hope he ends up somewhere.

Beating big-time teams is no small feat but at USC, it always seems easy. Last year, the Trojans beat North Carolina, Arizona, and UCLA but couldn’t win many games around that. This year is similar. If SC can avoid a disastrous remaining Pac-10 campaign, they should already have an at-large bid locked up because of quality wins.

USC has already beat four teams that were top 20 material when they faced off. They beat #8 Wichita State in non-conference play and have now rattled off wins against Oregon, Washington, and Arizona. Those kinds of wins look very, very good on an NCAA Tournament resume.

I got a chance to watch last night’s game and SC was impressive. They finally have a legit homecourt advantage now that they’re out of the ghetto Los Angeles Sports Arena. The Galen Center is a nice facility and they had a big crowd last night. But it wasn’t sold out, something that I do have a problem with. San Diego St. can sell out their game versus Arizona (in a larger venue) but USC can’t? I guess all the USC football fans like UCLA basketball.

Arizona has one of the most talented teams in the country but why can’t they seem to put it together? They can run and score with anyone but 17 turnovers isn’t going to cut it. They’re going to need a near-perfect performance to win Saturday vs. UCLA. The Wildcats have lost three of four.

Nick Young’s 30 point night was huge. Mix in 18 points from senior Roderick Stewart (and his hideous three point stroke) and 16 from Gabriel Pruitt and you get a pretty nice scoring trio. Young and Pruitt are both juniors and if they stay for their senior season, it’s going to be tough to overlook this SC team. With OJ Mayo coming into Los Angeles next year, USC could find themselves contending for Pac 10 titles. That was the plan when the Galen Center opened and it’s looking like a reality.

Throughout much of the nonconference college basketball schedule, I made sure to focus on a few things. Usually, it would be the ACC, usually the standard for college hoops excellence. Not this year. There’s the SEC, which boasts the defending champ Florida Gators. Then there’s the Pac-10, who have two legit national championship contenders (hell, how about favorites), not to mention a handful of other quality teams.

January 20th and February 17th. You might as well mark your calendars now. If you watch two college basketball games all year, these might be the ones to watch. It’s UCLA vs. Arizona. UCLA is undefeated with 14 straight wins, four of those over ranked teams. Then there’s Arizona, whose only loss came by three points at Virginia. What UCLA gets done with poise and teamwork, Arizona does it with absolutely freakish talent and athleticism. These two teams will be in it ’till the very end. If you want to see a handful of lottery picks on the court at one time, watch Arizona vs. the Bruins. But definitely watch Arizona play North Carolina on January 27th. It’s Lute Olsen’s standard to throw in a brutal non-conference game in the middle of the Pac-10 season. I’d say he picked a decent opponent in the Tarheels.

But after those two teams, there’s certainly a lot more. Oregon was undefeated until last night’s home loss to…USC, a team that is quietly shaping up to be pretty damn formidable. The Trojans have beat ranked teams Wichita State, Washington, and Oregon in the last two weeks. Everyone knew USC was on the rise with the opening of the Gale Center and next year’s insane recruiting class. I’m tired enough of USC pulling countless five star players in football. Now they’re going to do it in basketball?

Throw in the tough teams of the Pacific Northwest and we might be looking at the deepest conference in the country. It’s certainly close. Washington St. is off to a great start, Oregon is 13-1, and the talented Washington Huskies will find themselves in the top 25 for most of the year (although they’re off to a 0-3 Pac-10 start). It’s not far-fetched to see five or six teams from this conference making it to the dance.