Sports Rumors

UCLA is "99%" of the way to replacing Kevin Love with another highly regarded center. That's the likelihood that J'Mison "Bobo" Morgan, a 6-foot-11 high school star from Dallas, will play for the Bruins next season, his mother, Bianca, said Tuesday.

An official announcement, she added, could come as soon as today. Morgan was rated fourth among high school centers by Rivals.com after averaging 13.5 points, 11.0 rebounds and 4.0 blocks a game last season. He signed with Louisiana State in November, but that was before the Tigers fired John Brady as coach, replacing him with Stanford's Trent Johnson.

At Morgan's request, Louisiana State on Tuesday released him from his commitment, allowing him to reopen the recruiting process. During his original recruitment, UCLA, Kansas and Alabama were Morgan's other finalists, and Bianca Morgan said UCLA "now feels right." The addition of Morgan makes UCLA's incoming recruiting class far and away the nation's best, according to analysts such as Dave Telep of Rivals.com and Jerry Meyer of Scout.com.

Source: Los Angeles Times

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USC's top basketball recruit might change his college choice if the Trojans face severe sanctions by the NCAA over illegal extra benefits allegedly received by O.J. Mayo. DeMar DeRozan, one of the nation's most highly sought high school players, signed with USC in November, but his father and older half-brother said Tuesday he might consider other schools if the Trojans sustain a quick and heavy penalty according to the Los Angeles Times.

NCAA investigating allegations involving USC's Mayo Tito Maddox sees himself in O.J. Mayo saga"This is a good wake-up call," Jermaine DeRozan, DeMar's half-brother, said. "I'm just hoping SC doesn't get put on probation [If it does], I would get . . . out of there."

Recruits who sign letters of intent are required to gain a release from that school to be eligible immediately without sitting out a season. The NCAA and Pacific 10 Conference are investigating Mayo because of allegations that he received tens of thousands of dollars in cash and gifts from Rodney Guillory, a Los Angeles events promoter said to be acting as a representative of a sports agency.

Source: Los Angeles Times

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It's no coincidence Ben Olsen's body is crumbling the way United is crumbling. Once Olsen's surgery for bone spurs in his left ankle did not heal properly, once part of the foundation went down, the entire house cratered according to the Washington Post.

Tom Soehn's club was shut out by Chicago at RFK on Thursday night, has been unable to score a goal on the road in three games and looked utterly listless against Colorado last weekend. The team that had the best regular season record the past two years in Major League Soccer is in last place in the Eastern Conference, and it's pretty clear the franchise's most familiar face alongside Jaime Moreno will not be able to help for at least a year — if then. Soehn mentioned "passion" and "energy" as missing commodities in his curt news conference after the Chicago loss, which Olsen has brought for the better part of 10 years to United.

"We can talk about Ben all day," Soehn said. "We obviously miss him dearly. But he's not there, so we have to move on without him."

Source: Washington Post

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The Los Angeles Galaxy's 2008 roster includes U.S. national team captain Landon Donovan, Guatemala national team captain Carlos Ruiz and former England national team captain David Beckham.

So it was strange to hear Galaxy Coach Ruud Gullit on Saturday night talking about the "lack of leadership" on the field during the team's 2-1 loss to the New York Red Bulls.

True, Ruiz remains sidelined because of a knee injury, but Donovan and Beckham have played every one of the team's 630 minutes this season. Between them they have scored 11 of the Galaxy's 14 goals, but the team has won only two of seven games. In part, the bleak record is because the Galaxy lacks quality and experience in key positions. But it is also because neither Donovan, Beckham, nor anyone else on the roster is the sort of calm but vocal on-field leader able to organize the players around him and get them to recognize what needs to be done in certain situations according to the Los Angeles Times.

Source: Los Angeles Times

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Tito Maddox is watching the O.J. Mayo saga unfold, "stunned by the parallel" of reports illustrating allegations that cash and gifts prohibited by college rules were funneled to the NBA-bound college star.

"Same story, same guy," Maddox, 26, said Monday in front of his Carson home during an interview with the Los Angeles Times.
Tito Maddox was talking about Los Angeles events promoter Rodney Guillory, whom Maddox said he was befriended by in the summer of 1998, just before his senior year at Compton High. Guillory faces allegations that he provided Mayo cash, meals, clothes, a flat-screen television, cellphone service and other services on behalf of Bill Duffy Associates Sports Management, the agency the top guard prospect recently announced would represent him as he turned pro.

The allegations were made by former associate Louis Johnson on a segment of ESPN's "Outside the Lines" broadcast Sunday. Johnson said Guillory received about $200,000 and a sports utility vehicle from BDA, sharing an estimated $30,000 of what he received with Mayo. For Maddox, it was a story that rang all too familiar.

Source: Los Angeles Times

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Former USC star O.J. Mayo accepted benefits in violation of NCAA rules from a Los Angeles events promoter while in high school and his one year of college, according to a former friend of the star freshman guard.

Louis Johnson said Sunday on ESPN's "Outside the Lines" that Mayo was given around $30,000 in cash and various gifts over the past four years from Rodney Guillory, a 43-year-old promoter in L.A. Johnson also alleged that Guillory acted as a runner for BDA Sports Management and estimated that BDA provided around $200,000 to Guillory, who gave a portion of the money to Mayo.

In exchange for the payments and gifts, Mayo gave a verbal agreement to let BDA represent him when he turned pro, according to Johnson.

Mayo is the second high-profile USC athlete to be accused of improper benefits in two years. The NCAA is still investigating findings of a Yahoo! Sports report into former Heisman Trophy-winning running back Reggie Bush, who, along with his family, appeared to receive financial gifts of close to $100,000 from marketing agents.

Mayo denied any wrongdoing in a statement to ESPN, saying: "I have been through investigations by the NCAA, the Pac-10 and USC before I attended school and during the time I have been here. … If these claims were true I would suspect they would have been discovered by one of these organizations."

Source: ESPN's "Outside the Lines"Los Angeles Times

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If the "plus-one" playoff model is ultimately rejected, and it will be, leaving college football with at least another six years of status quo, an angry public won't need a posse to find the culprits. The Pacific 10 and Big Ten conferences, along with the Rose Bowl, already have been identified in wanted posters according to the Los Angeles Times.

"I think it's an interesting label, but it's a caricature," Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany said Tuesday during a break at the annual meeting of Bowl Championships Series commissioners.

Delany knows how this is going down. There is not going to be a playoff in college football, and he's going to get blamed for it, along with Pac-10 Commissioner Tom Hansen and Rose Bowl Chief Executive Mitch Dorger. All have staunchly opposed a change in the current BCS system, which in its 10-year history has been controversial, to say the least. The Rose Bowl, to be clear, is not to blame, although it has received its fair — or is that unfair? — share in some media accounts. The Rose Bowl is merely a concerned spectator. It has an opinion but no clout in this playoff fight and will go where the BCS wind blows.

Source: Los Angeles Times

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Ronaldo went into hiding Tuesday after a run-in with cross-dressing prostitutes that prompted police to investigate whether to charge one with trying to extort money from the soccer star. The AC Milan player, in Brazil recovering from a knee surgery, canceled two TV appearances, and local media said he will continue physiotherapy at his home.

Police said Ronaldo committed no crime, but he was accused by one prostitute of using drugs and not wanting to pay. Prostitution is legal in Brazil.

"It is necessary to clarify that no formal accusations were made against Ronaldo," read a statement on the player's Web site. "An advocate of social causes, Ronaldo has never used drugs and has always been admired by children in Brazil and around the world. There are indications of an extortion attempt in which the Milan striker is the only victim."

Ronaldo, a three-time FIFA player of the year, acknowledged to police he knew they were prostitutes but did not realize they were cross-dressers until getting to a motel early Monday morning, according to police.

Source: Associated Press

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Galaxy Coach Ruud Gullit has been a lot more forthright with visiting reporters from Europe than he has been with the local ink-stained wretches — or perhaps the locals have simply not been asking the correct questions. Over the weekend, for instance, in a story that ran in England's Sunday Times, Gullit bemoaned the all-too-frequently amateur nature of the Galaxy operation according to the Los Angeles Times.

"I'm sure that when people think of the Galaxy the picture that comes to mind is not of our staff making phone calls to friends on Friday to see if they can play in a reserve game on Sunday," Gullit told writer Brian Doogan. "But, strange as it may seem, this is the reality."

The Galaxy did not have enough players and had to play with only 10 men in a reserve game against Colorado in Denver. The following weekend, the team plucked a ticket salesman out of the front office to make up the numbers in a reserve game against San Jose. It is this sort of shambolic organization — brought on in part by injuries, in part by Galaxy inefficiency and lack of foresight, and in part by MLS rules that limit the amount of minutes a player can play in a 48-hour period — that has left Gullit shaking his head.

Source: Los Angeles Times

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