Saturday, March 8, 2008

One of these Players is expected to get a lot of playing time next year


When we first learned this past fall that teenage actor/singer Romeo Miller (aka Lil’ Romeo) was being recruited to play hoops at USC, we figured the kid must have some game. Afterall, USC and coach Tim Floyd have made good progress towards establishing USC as a consistent top-25 program nationally and have put themselves in position to go after the top high school players in the nation.

Well, turns out that Miller (who also happens to be the son of former rapper and current all-around entertainment mogul, Master P) does indeed have game... that is to say, if one’s definition of "game" happens to be "is good friends with Demar DeRozan" of Compton who is the No. 2 rated player in the nation according to Rivals.com. Story here.
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At 5-10 and possessing a bum knee, Miller played in only 8 of his team’s 27 games because of that knee averaging 8.6 points a game for that L.A. area scourge, Beverly Hills High School.

Both Miller and DeRozan have signed letters of intent to play for the Trojans next year.

Coach Floyd has been accused of offering a scholarship to Miller as part of a package deal for DeRozan. For his part, Floyd said that Miller was “a good little player” but didn’t deny that Miller’s fame played a part, "The more buzz you can create, the more news stories you can create, the better served you are as a program." ... and Demar is showing up when, coach?
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And speaking of USC… inspired performance today beating the #7 ranked Stanford Cardinal who with their 2nd straight loss here in L.A. (lost on Thursday to UCLA in OT) may have played their way out of the #3 seed in the South region as projected by ESPN.

UCLA slept-walk through their game against Cal this afternoon but in another improbable come-back (that would be 3 straight now) scored 5 straight points in the final 30 seconds to beat Cal 81-80 and most likely locked-up a #1 seed in the West region in the process. Our doubts about the Final Four prospects for the Bruins have only grown this past week. Our ‘barometer boy’, Josh Shipp had 12 points on just 5-13 shooting though he did hit the game-winner.

H/T: Mongo is responsible for the primary research as well as this... which Mongo was thinking was Lil' Romeo and which commentors, in their own vernacular, commended for being a long-lost example of hip-hop that was witty, funny and... good. Nice work, Mongo.

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