JuJu Watkins scores 33, sends USC to Pac-12 final with 2-OT win
LAS VEGAS — For the first time since 2014, USC will play for the Pac-12 women’s basketball tournament title after advancing to the championship game with an 80-70 double-overtime semifinal win on Friday over crosstown rival UCLA.
Freshman phenom JuJu Watkins, the centerpiece of USC’s rebuild, said even she was surprised by the Trojans’ rapid turnaround.
“Yeah, I’m not gonna lie. I did not think this would happen this soon,” Watkins said following her 33-point, 10-rebound performance. “But I guess timing is everything, and I’m glad that we’re here.
“This group, it means everything. And I’m just blessed, honestly. But yeah, better than anything I could’ve hoped for really.”
USC moves on to Sunday’s final against Stanford, which beat Oregon State earlier Friday. The two teams last met in the tournament’s title game in 2009, when the Cardinal won 89-64.
Watkins’ 33 points were the most by a freshman in a Pac-12 tournament game and marked her 13th 30-point game of the season, passing Caitlin Clark for the most of any freshman over the past 25 seasons.
Watkins, a 6-foot-2 guard and former No. 1 recruit, also became the fourth freshman in NCAA Division I history to score at least 800 points in the season and now has 801 on the year, passing Courtney Paris (788) and Clark (799).
USC, which also made its first Pac-12 tournament semifinal since 2014, clinched its 25th win of the season, its most since advancing to the Elite Eight in 1994. With the win, the Trojans improved to 4-2 against Associated Press top-10 teams this season after going 4-35 against such teams over the previous nine seasons combined.
Watkins, who won Pac-12 freshman of the year earlier this week, left the game twice after hurting her left ankle, once in the first minute of the game and again at the beginning of the first overtime. But it would’ve taken a lot more for the star, considered to be the game’s next generation player, to be sidelined in a game of this magnitude.
“Even when I went out, I knew I had to get back in because my team needed me,” Watkins said. “This was nothing that I’m not used to feel. I feel great, I’m ready to play on Sunday.”
Coach Lindsay Gottlieb said she started considering contingency plans but also knew how tough Watkins is.
“My gut feeling was that if there was a possible way she could come back, she would,” Gottlieb said.
McKenzie Forbes, one of the Trojans’ three transfers from Ivy League institutions, chipped in 17 points and 10 rebounds. The Bruins were led by Charisma Osborne (21 points) and Lauren Betts (17 points, 18 rebounds).
The game had all the makings of an instant classic: USC led by 16 early before UCLA stormed back after the first quarter. Players were flying around all over in a physical battle apropos of a rivalry. With the score tied at the end of regulation and the first overtime, both teams fell short on opportunities to come away with the win, before the Trojans sealed the deal with a 13-3 edge in the second overtime.
Gottlieb said it helped make for “an epic evening for women’s college basketball, for our program, for the L.A. rivalry,” later adding, “I feel like it could’ve been a Final Four game.”
Added Watkins on the juice of the showdown: “A lot comes with a rivalry, I guess, just to be able to have this opportunity to bring L.A. to Vegas. It’s just a great atmosphere.”
It’s rather fitting that the final Pac-12 tournament championship game will feature two of the West Coast’s most iconic women’s basketball programs: the Cardinal, who have won three national championships and are going for their 16th Pac-12 tournament title, and the Trojans, who won two national titles in the 1980s and whose alumni include all-time great Cheryl Miller, Lisa Leslie and Tina Thompson.
At the time of Watkins’ commitment in November 2022, USC hadn’t been to an NCAA tournament since 2014, and it hasn’t been past the first weekend since 1994. Now, in Gottlieb’s third year and Watkins’ first, the Trojans are within reach of a Pac-12 championship, and even of earning a No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA tournament.
“We’re honored to be part of this kind of resurgence, this moment in women’s basketball. That’s not lost on us,” Gottlieb said. “I do think there’s a bigger thing at play and we’re really enjoying that and I’m grateful every day to be in that situation with this group.”