TOO LITTLE JUICE

“History has to start from somewhere, and I was thinking [of] maybe getting USC turned around.”

-- O.J. Mayo during his official visit to USC in November 2006

Well, there’s always next year . . . or maybe not.

Barring an unexpected run to the Final Four or an even more unlikely return for a second season of college basketball, Ovinton J’Anthony Mayo hasn’t had quite the impact he envisioned 15 months ago.

USC didn’t suddenly become a college basketball blueblood. In fact, the Trojans are still very much the undercard in their own town.

So, if it was a legacy Mayo was looking for when he surprised everyone by trekking across the country from Huntington, W.Va., to play for the Trojans, those apparently are built in more than one season.

“If O.J. goes into the NBA this year, then no, it’s not going to have more effect than a Nick Young or somebody else who helped them win games,” said former Stanford coach Mike Montgomery, an FSN analyst and a self-professed critic of a system that allows players to leap to the NBA after one college season. “If he stayed three years, led them to the Final Four, was a two-time All-American, first-round draft pick, then yeah.”

For one season, though, there is no debating Mayo’s impact. Averaging 20.9 points, he’s already established a school record for points by a freshman and has been selected first-team All-Pacific 10 Conference.

And there’s this: With him, USC has won 20 games and seems a lock for an NCAA tournament berth. Without him, “I’d hate to think where we’d be . . .” USC Coach Tim Floyd said.

Few freshmen have made the kind of immediate splash Mayo spoke of as a high school senior, when he said he picked USC in part because he thought it gave him the best chance to win a national title. Carmelo Anthony led Syracuse to its first national championship as a freshman in 2003, but the school already had a proud history that included recent Final Four appearances.

USC has not been to a Final Four since 1954 and has not won an outright conference title since 1961.

“I think it’s difficult in one year,” Washington Coach Lorenzo Romar said when asked whether it was possible for one player to change the face of a program in such a short period. “I think it’s difficult if you don’t advance a long way in the NCAA tournament.

“[But] I think he [Mayo] brought a lot of excitement to that program. . . . To have someone come from a different part of the country to play for USC, so much publicity was brought to the SC program as a result. They have a star playing for them.”

A star with some drawing power. While USC hasn’t always packed the Galen Center, the Trojans averaged 8,468 fans for home games this season, a 46% increase over last year. And eight games have been nationally televised, five more than at this point one year ago.

Mayo said he joined the Trojans in part because of the promotional opportunities that a major media market such as Southern California would present, and he’s appeared on the cover of several magazines, including Sports Illustrated, Slam and Sporting News.

But the local media hasn’t fawned over him. One major newspaper in the region hasn’t traveled with the team, and a Times columnist wrote that Mayo needed to polish his game by sticking around for one more year.

Mayo’s family also had to come up with $460 when reporters revealed he had violated NCAA rules in January by accepting free Lakers tickets from Anthony, a friend who plays for the NBA’s Denver Nuggets. Mayo’s family had to donate the value of the tickets to charity.

Mayo also has been nicked from time to time on television. CBS analyst Billy Packer said Mayo was “a good player; he is not a great player” -- and that was during a game in which Mayo helped the Trojans upset UCLA at Pauley Pavilion.

Through it all, Mayo has remained unfailingly polite with the media, at one point stopping an answer mid-sentence to make sure a reporter who had recently written about the ticket issue could turn over the tape on his recorder.

“I can’t imagine being under that kind of eye and having to live up to what he had to live up to, and I think he’s handled it extraordinarily well,” Floyd said. “His emotions have been steady and his attitude has been unbelievable. I don’t think any of us can relate to what he has had on him versus others who have come before.”

USC fans might have momentarily wondered whether Mayo would make any impact at all when he scored 32 points in his collegiate debut -- and the Trojans lost by 15 points at home to Mercer. Mayo made only 12 of 27 shots and had twice as many turnovers as assists in that game, stirring concerns that he was not exactly the NBA-ready talent many had anticipated.

Though his scoring rarely wavered -- Mayo has reached double figures in all but one game -- there were many occasions when he made poor decisions with the ball or forced shots. Thirty games into the season, Mayo still has more turnovers than assists.

Pro scouts have said that the 6-foot-5, 200-pound Mayo, a naturally gifted point guard who projects to occupy that spot at the next level, has been playing out of position as a shooting guard who’s overly reliant on three-point shots.

“I don’t understand why you would have probably the most talented guy at SC in recent memory and not have him have the ball in his hands,” one NBA scout said. “They didn’t make Reggie Bush a blocker. Wouldn’t you rather have one of the most talented players in the country with the ball in his hands?”

Yet, Montgomery acknowledged that Mayo shouldered a heavy burden on a team with few other scoring options -- leading to some poor shooting performances against elite teams like Kansas and Memphis -- and has emerged as the primary reason why USC has flourished in recent weeks.

Mayo scored 32 points during a comeback victory over Oregon on Feb. 21 to start a six-game stretch in which he has averaged 26.2 points. He’s also outscored every other heralded freshman guard he’s played against, including Memphis’ Derrick Rose, Arizona’s Jerryd Bayless and Arizona State’s James Harden, though Harden did outscore Mayo in the first meeting.

“He has that magic, that athletic ability that not a lot of people have, I would say Jordan-esque a little bit with his ability to hang in the air and make the impossible shot,” Montgomery said.

Along the way, Mayo has won the trust of teammates who have come to respect his determination and heady demeanor.

“He does a lot of things out there on the court and he’s a competitor and a smart kid,” Trojans sophomore guard Daniel Hackett said. “What the coaches say, he gets onto the court and as a freshman, not a lot of guys can do that.”

Mayo’s legacy might be constrained in part by USC’s surprising NCAA tournament run last year, forcing him to lead the Trojans back to a regional semifinal at the very least or be considered by some a failure.

Entering this week’s Pac-10 tournament, the resume of Mayo’s Trojans bears a striking resemblance to that of the 2006-07 Trojans with Young, Gabe Pruitt and Lodrick Stewart.

Like last year’s team, USC finished tied for third place in the Pac-10 standings, and the 2007-08 Trojans have just one fewer victory overall than at the same point last season.

That should be considered a tribute to Mayo since USC typically starts two freshmen and three sophomores, and underclassmen account for 96% of the team’s scoring.

After leading the Trojans to a 77-64 victory over then-No. 7 Stanford on Saturday in what could be his final college home game, Mayo was asked whether he had made the impact he expected this season.

He said the Trojans “pretty much started it last year in the Sweet 16 run and I just got an opportunity to fill a spot on a good team and I feel we’ve had a pretty successful season.”

Floyd said he would let the season play out before commenting on Mayo’s legacy.

“Let’s see how it ends up,” the coach said. “Let’s see how it all falls down the road. I think he’s had a wonderful year to this point.”

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ben.bolch@latimes.com