With a name like lil' Romeo, how could that not be a distraction.

First of all I have to say thank you to a young family at the WSU game tonight for kicking me and my brother-in-law out of our seats and showing us our right seats, which were 26 more rows down closer to the floor, four rows up from the floor.

So now that I have gotten all my thank yous and welcomes out of the way I got to enjoy a good collegiate Pac-10 basketball game. As I was sitting in my lovely seat at halftime I couldn't help but overhear the man in front of me screaming "HEY ROMEO, HEY ROMEO!" At first I was trying to wonder why I was listening to poetry references at a basketball game, but then I realized the lil' Romeo (a.k.a Percy Miller) was on the USC roster. That one glance of the teen rap star it brought me back to all those headlines and stories all about lil' Romeo signing with the USC basketball team. The sad part is was that he has simply fallen off the basketball talent since the signing.

Before I dive into my main point of this story let me give some season stats for lil' Romeo (Percy Miller).

PPG APG RPG

0.5 0.3 0.3

Wow! Now that is a stat line! Now before everyone starts to get all crazy on me for criticizing a freshman, I just want to say that the hype on this kid was pretty big. Just like all the rest of most college basketball freshman, lil' Romeo was expected to do big things.

As I was watching the game the same question was running through my mind the whole time.

Why would Tim Floyd recruit this kid? Can someone please tell me the perks of recruiting a ex-rapper/TV show star?

When I realized something, its Tim Floyd, and, its USC basketball. Now, I know that college basketball has turned into a freshman game to where everyone is checking out what teams have who, and where high school seniors are going to go, but that's not the point. Tim Floyd and the USC staff recruited a kid that goes by lil' Romeo, how can that be good?

Throughout the Washington State game you could point out young kids in the crowd with their hip-cool picture phones taking pics of the teen rap phenom (Who, by the way, sat on the pine for what it seemed like the entire game). How can that not be distracting to your teammates, the coaching staff, and the whole university itself? This question that bothered me brought me to one solution, Tim Floyd. I have to honestly say that I wouldn't put anything past that man. He seems to reek the aroma of "high profile" names that are ready to jump to the pro's faster than a fish out of water.

The point I'm trying to get across is that I would of taken any of the kids on Washington State's roster over Percy "lil' Romeo" Miller, and I'm not even that big of a coug fan. It brings great confusion to me about Tim Floyd in the fact that he would take a big enough risk to take a kid who is used to rhyming, wearing bling, and being in front of T.V. cameras. Romeo is listed at 5'11 and 170, but after looking at him, in actuality, let's give him 5"8 and a 160. The list goes on and on with the distractions this kid will bring, and I wont be surprised when he realizes NBA is not in his future and he divorces Tim Floyd and the USC Trojan basketball team.

I'm still amazed that there isn't a billion articles on Romeo and how he went from rap star, ( well, I shouldn't say star, that's reserved for Snoop doggy dogg) to Division I basketball player. At the end of the day, we could of probably seen a normal kid, who probably would work harder, play better, have better skills and would not be a celebrity suit up for the USC Trojans and give them a better shot for a championship.

Isn't that what Tim Floyd wants?

-J.J.