In February 2006, Mayo attracted the largest crowd to ever see a high school game in Cincinnati, Ohio when 16,202 fans watched North College Hill fall to the nation's number one rated team, Oak Hill Academy. Mayo had been considered a lock to make the leap straight from high school to the NBA, but the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NBA and its players instituted a rule that a player must be at least a year out of high school before he can enter the NBA, effectively curtailing those plans. On July 5, 2006, it was reported by ESPN that he would attend USC. On July 8, however, WSAZ-TV reported that USC was only one of three colleges that Mayo was considering: the other two being Kansas State University and the University of Florida.