Come one, come all. Don’t be shy. Step right up! Pick a Trojan! Any Trojan! It’s easy. All you need is a press badge and a mallet!

It was most likely the result of a simple mistake, none the less, OJ Mayo is the latest Trojan to face the free-press firing squad. As reported by the LA Times, while attending a party, OJ Mayo accepted free Lakers-Nuggets tickets from Nuggets’ guard Carmelo Anthony. Unbeknownst to Mayo, or so he claims, the tickets were one row behind court-side and carried a value of $230 a piece.

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NCAA regulations prohibit student athletes from receiving “free or reduced-cost admission to professional athletics contests from professional sports organizations, unless such services also are available to the student body in general.”

What makes the violation unclear is the exact relationship between Carmelo and Mayo: friends or recruiter. If the NCAA finds that Carmelo was representing the Nuggets franchise, then a violation would have occurred. But if Carmelo gave him the tickets as a friend, Mayo may be in the clear.

Carmelo, who’s known Mayo since the seventh grade, thinks the situation has blown all out of proportion. As reported by the Rocky Mountain News, Carmelo had this to say of the media feeding frenzy:

“I don’t know how in the heck it got that serious…It should be nothing against (Mayo).’”

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