Still mulling over high schools, eighth-grader locks in his college

This is exactly the kind of encouragement parents holding second mortgages to pay for trainers and summer camps do NOT need:

For the second year running, Southern California basketball coach Tim Floyd offered a scholarship to an eighth-grader.

 HUNTINGTON — O.J. Mayo spoke last week of visiting the dentist before he graduates from high school and leaves his hometown for the University of Southern California.

"I’m going to be 2,000 miles away and you have a new dentist and a new background," said the Huntington High All-American guard. "Here

 Gabe Pruitt made it official Thursday, saying that he will declare for the NBA draft but not hire an agent, leaving open the possibility to return for his senior year at USC if he doesn’t like where he is projected.
Pruitt will have until June 18 to remove his name from the draft — which is June 28 — if

Lil’ Romeo says he’s bound for the University of Southern California, where if all goes according to plan, he could be Romeo Miller, Trojans’ basketball player.

The teenage hip-hop star, a high school junior, has committed to play basketball for the Trojans in 2008, Dave Lindsay, a spokesman for Lil’ Romeo’s online label,

Reported by hoopsworld.com.  People are talking the same way about OJ Mayo as they did about LeBron James at this time of year back in 2003. In fact Mayo, one of the nation’s top high school players out of Huntington, West Virginia, would be taking his 31 points per game to some lousy NBA squad with a top three pick in the draft if this were a different era. B