He’s played to rave reviews since middle school. And when O.J. Mayo and the rest of the USC men’s basketball team hosts Cal Poly tonight at the Galen Center in Los Angeles, the Mustangs will be trying to steal some of the spotlight.

“It would be a season-changer,” Cal Poly guard Lorenzo Keeler said of a possible win.

O.J. Mayo, a possible upcoming NBA Draft lottery selection, has led the No. 25 Trojans (7-3) in scoring with 19.6 points per game. While the 6-foot-5 freshman sensation has turned the most heads, he’s been joined by a supporting cast that has helped USC win seven of its past nine outings.

The Trojans’ only two stumbles during that span were a pair of four-point losses to No. 2 Memphis and No. 4 Kansas.

Although O.J. Mayo had a season-low 12 points in his team’s most recent display, an 83-54 drubbing of Delaware State on Monday, USC coach Tim Floyd was pleased with the way he handled extra defensive pressure.

“People are making a lot of him for a reason,” Floyd said. “(Delaware State) doubled him every time he caught the ball, and he decided to get teammates involved and created opportunities for others. That’s why he’s a great player. He realizes winning is the paramount thing in the game and there are other guys who can score.”

While addressing O.J. Mayo will likely be a similar team effort for Cal Poly (5-5), Keeler said, the primary duties of defending him will likely belong to senior guard Dawin Whiten.

“If (the guards) need help, we’ll help them,”Mustangs center Titus Shelton said after last weekend’s win over Cal State Bakersfield. “I have a lot of confidence in our guys, and they usually take the challenge when there are leading scorers (in the backcourt) on other teams.”

For all of the attention paid to O.J. Mayo, Mustangs coach Kevin Bromley seems just as concerned with the rest of the Trojans’ weapons.

“They’re a top-25 team in the country, and you don’t do that with just one good player,” said

Bromley, who added his team “might trap the post” against the Trojans’ frontcourt tandem of Davon Jefferson and Taj Gibson.

Jefferson, a freshman forward, scored 17 points in the rout of Delaware State. Gibson, a 6-9, 225-pound center who graced the Pac-10 All-Freshman Team en route to a Sweet 16 appearance a season ago, enters tonight’s contest averaging team highs of 7.9 rebounds and 1.9 blocks per game.

“They are a little bigger, they’re physical, and we’ve got to work rotations out of” USC’s post, Bromley said.

Delaware State’s recent foray into the Pac-10 doesn’t seem to bode well for Cal Poly. Before being crushed in Los Angeles, the Hornets were blasted by Arizona State 77-38 on Dec. 5; the Sun Devils similarly beat the Mustangs in Tempe on Nov. 26, 75-41.

Still, though, the Trojans don’t intend to take the Mustangs lightly.

“They’re a veteran team, a sound team that knows when to take shots and is committed defensively,” Floyd said. “They’re certainly talented enough to win (the Big West Conference) and typically that translates into danger anytime you have a lot of young men who would like to demonstrate and prove they can play at (the Pac-10) level.”

After playing seven of their first nine games on the road, the Mustangs, forward Matt Hanson said, could benefit from having extra practice time, as Cal Poly’s final exam week ended Dec. 7. USC’s, on the other hand, finished Wednesday.

“Getting that rest has been huge,” Hanson said. “We’ve been having two-a-days to get ready to go down there.”

Such additional time off from school seemed to pay dividends in the teams’ most recent and only meeting, a 93-78 Cal Poly win at the Sports Arena in Los Angeles on Dec. 22, 2003.

“A lot of teams might get scared and think, ‘It’s USC we’re playing,’ ”Keeler said. “But if we just stick to our game plan and give it our best shot, we may raise a few eyebrows.”