LOS ANGELES — JuJu Watkins’ arms didn’t really feel fairly proper. They had been tingling in a means that appeared unnatural, and when she appeared down at them, although they had been bodily there (all 10 fingers — examine; completely manicured nails — examine) they didn’t really feel like her arms. Not the arms that made her the No. 1 recruit within the nation. Not the arms that made the marvelous appear mundane as a highschool basketball participant. Not the arms that signed the primary Nike identify, picture and likeness licensing deal for any highschool ladies basketball participant ever.
She scanned the hallway for a basketball — pondering that is perhaps the one factor that would convey her arms again into her physique — however none had been in sight. Close to her was the tunnel, the place on the finish awaited the beginning of Watkins’ faculty profession. She knew the questions that had swirled round her for months would lastly be answered as soon as she stepped on it: What may she make of herself and a long-dormant USC program?
“You nervous, Ju?” teammate Rayah Marshall teased her repeatedly the previous few days. “Sure,” Watkins admitted. “A little bit.” And now, it appeared, her arms had been in on it, too.
From the courtroom, Ohio State coach Kevin McGuff skilled his personal sense of the unknown. His Buckeyes — with their intense urgent protection — had been ranked No. 7, a well-liked Last 4 decide with a bevy of returners and future WNBA gamers.
And but, McGuff had spent the majority of his USC scouting watching highschool and grassroots sport tape of Watkins, one thing he couldn’t recall doing earlier than. As a result of it was clear from the second Watkins signed her letter of intent at Sierra Canyon that she can be the solar round which USC’s each different piece orbited.
Watkins’ first bucket got here a minute into the sport; her first help, 30 seconds later.
No matter jitters existed, no matter occurred to her arms in that hallway, dissipated someplace between the tunnel and tipoff. She dropped 32 factors on Ohio State in a nine-point USC win. WNBA legend Candace Parker, who supplied commentary for TruTV, stated: “USC is in for a deal with with JuJu Watkins’ profession.”
However the second that caught out to McGuff wasn’t Watkins’ scoring. Or her spotlight reel performs. And even when Watkins carried out the favored “too small” celebration after ending by three of his gamers.
It was when she went to the bench within the third quarter after choosing up her third and fourth fouls. He watched as she jogged to the sideline, noting that she didn’t hold her head or throw her arms up in regards to the calls. In the beginning of the fourth, with the Trojans up two, Watkins returned to the ground.
Perhaps this second would rattle the freshman, McGuff thought. Perhaps this second was too large. Perhaps the trepidation Watkins had seemingly lacked would now seem with just one foul separating her and the bench for the remainder of the sport.
Mistaken.
The Trojans scored 27 fourth-quarter factors. Watkins had seven of these, and two assists, whereas enjoying the complete 10 minutes and not using a foul.
“In your first sport, in opposition to a ranked opponent, in an enormous occasion — that was probably the most spectacular factor,” McGuff stated. “And it leads me to imagine she’s going to be an absolute famous person as a lot due to her expertise, however much more so due to her mindset.”
Because the No. 1 participant within the 2023 class, selecting a program that has languished in mediocrity her whole life didn’t faze her. She doesn’t seem nervous when celebrities sit courtside to observe her play. She’s open about the truth that she doesn’t simply need to — however plans to — win a nationwide title earlier than she leaves USC.
However don’t confuse her quiet nature for a insecurity. As a result of if there’s one factor Watkins will wager on, it’s herself and her skill to rise to the event. It’s her arms, her thoughts and her motivation that make her one of the best freshman faculty basketball has seen in a very long time. Perhaps since USC’s personal Cheryl Miller.
“In my 20 years of teaching, I’ve by no means been speaking a few participant in these sorts of grandiose phrases 14 video games in. However she’s totally different,” third-year coach Lindsay Gottlieb stated. “It’s not delicate how good JuJu is.”
Gottlieb sat on one of many couches in her workplace throughout from Watkins, learning her, making an attempt to glean any clues from Watkins’ physique language.
Watkins had stored a decent circle by her recruitment. What may’ve been probably the most high-profile saga in girls’s basketball was really an air-tight chamber with no leaks. There weren’t social media posts saying each provide and campus go to. Coaches had been principally at nighttime about the place she was leaning.
The L.A. native, then a junior, attended the USC-UCLA sport within the Galen Heart and now sat with Gottlieb in her workplace. It was Gottlieb’s first season at USC, a program that hadn’t made the NCAA Event in almost a decade. She was a splashy rent after delivering Cal its first Last 4 look a decade earlier and spending the earlier two seasons on the Cleveland Cavaliers’ workers.
Gottlieb had all the time been cautious about which video games precisely she’d invite Watkins. She knew the power and surroundings in Galen Heart had a great likelihood to damper the expertise. It was late January, and Watkins had simply watched the Trojans lose to UCLA by 10, dropping to 9-7. Watkins had misplaced 10 video games whole throughout her highschool profession at that time. She sat in a chair with a view of the hallway as USC gamers strolled by the workplace grabbing meals and shouting as they handed the open door, “See you tomorrow, Coach.”
Gottlieb remembers Watkins posing one query: Why are they smiling?
Gottlieb knew Watkins’ recruitment would probably hinge on this second.
Gottlieb defined that three days earlier, USC misplaced to UCLA by 23. Within the quick turnaround, they watched movie and applied modifications. Within the sport that night time, they course-corrected. No, they didn’t win, however they moved ahead. And progress was the aim proper now, and the Trojans felt good about that.
“I needed to clarify that faculty basketball is a journey,” Gottlieb stated. “And it wasn’t the place we wished to be, however there have been child steps to it.”
A 12 months later, when Watkins introduced her high three faculties — USC, Stanford and South Carolina — it appeared like an actual one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-others situation. Stanford and South Carolina had every received nationwide titles within the earlier three seasons. USC hadn’t even made the NCAA Event.
However that dialog in Gottlieb’s workplace caught with Watkins. She all the time had a want to construct one thing, to assist rework a spot. Her great-grandfather, Ted Watkins Sr., based the Watts Labor Neighborhood Motion Committee (WLCAC) in 1965 as an initiative to enhance the lives of those that known as the South Central Los Angeles neighborhood dwelling. When a lot of the nation thinks of Watts, they consider the Watts riots of 1965. When Watkins thinks of Watts, she sees her neighborhood that surrounds the park named after her great-grandfather. She envisions the medical heart and condominium complexes he dropped at the realm. As a baby, she spent her summers working as a receptionist for the group. Throughout her “lunch breaks,” she talked about life and basketball within the workplace of her grandpa, Tim Watkins, who ran the WLCAC after Ted died in 1993. He took her on runs to the shop to purchase sweet, and he let her shadow the youngsters who labored on the summer season initiatives. Watkins, 5 years youthful than her closest sibling, was the little sister who hung round and tried to leap in on the whole lot with the massive youngsters. Once they wouldn’t let her, she’d observe and pay attention.
She observed how a lot he invested into his relationships with others and noticed that everybody who encountered her grandpa referred to him as a buddy. On the WLCAC and at dwelling, Watkins was continually surrounded by the data and affect handed down by her great-grandfather. “Don’t transfer … enhance” was certainly one of his quotes she heard numerous instances.
When it got here time to determine the place to attend faculty, these phrases caught together with her. She wished to assist construct one thing. Certain, she may assist Stanford and South Carolina keep on high. Or she may assist change the path of USC. Higher but, she may do it in an area that she had pushed previous tons of of instances.
“Ultimately, that is my metropolis, and USC hasn’t been sizzling for the reason that ‘80s,” Watkins stated. “However USC had a deeper which means than simply, ‘Oh, it’s dwelling.’ In fact, that performed into it. However coming to this faculty and actually having a huge impact on the trajectory of this system right here — that was essential to me.”
When Cheryl Miller graduated from USC in 1986 — after successful two nationwide titles and making a 3rd journey to the title sport — it appeared as if the Trojans’ dynasty was able to anchor the West Coast of ladies’s faculty hoops. That they had not solely established themselves with elite ball gamers, however nicely earlier than the NIL period, the gamers had been well-known throughout the nation.
After USC received its second nationwide title in 1984, Sports activities Illustrated wrote: “The Trojan girls … have by no means had a tough time getting a desk anyplace on the town. That’s due to the sports activities data division at USC, a.ok.a. the College of Social Calendars, which believes extra in private appearances than press releases and works with the college’s girls athletes on grooming and etiquette and critiques all interviews. No surprise Miller and the McGees are simply probably the most recognizable girls athletes in L.A., and the Girls of Troy probably the most seen group in girls’s basketball.”
However for the subsequent decade, this system went on a gradual decline. Throughout the nation, different powers rose. Tennessee and Pat Summitt received three titles between 1987 and 1991; Stanford employed Tara VanDerveer in 1985 and the Cardinal received its first nationwide title in 1990; UConn introduced its ascendancy in 1995 when it received its first title over Tennessee, no much less.
As for USC, it struggled to determine the teaching excellence and stability these packages loved.
After successful two nationwide titles with Miller, Linda Sharp retired in 1989 and this system employed Marianne Stanley, who received a nationwide title with Previous Dominion. 4 years and an equal pay struggle (and lawsuit) later, Stanley and USC parted methods. Miller returned as a head coach in 1993 and coached the Trojans, led by Lisa Leslie, to the 1994 Elite Eight — the furthest this system had gotten in March since her enjoying days — however she resigned abruptly after two seasons. USC then introduced in Fred Williams, who made it two seasons earlier than he was gone.
Within the late ‘90s, USC lastly established some head teaching consistency, however by then, expectations had fallen too far and others had crammed the void. Solely 4 instances between 1997 and 2021, when Gottlieb arrived, did the Trojans end among the many high three groups within the convention.
Within the 2000s, when nationwide recruiting picked up in girls’s basketball, USC remained very a lot a has-been. The Trojans’ 1983 and 1984 titles had been lengthy forgotten or fully unknown by gamers who had been nonetheless in diapers (or not but born) when USC hoisted these trophies.
From 2007 till 2022, California produced 16 top-10 recruits (10 % of the nation’s whole), however solely a kind of gamers went to USC whereas three apiece went to UConn and Duke.
Worse but, USC was by no means even within the image for the nation’s No. 1 recruits who hailed from California. In 2000, Diana Taurasi selected UConn over UCLA and Arizona. “I by no means thought I’d depart (California),” Taurasi advised ESPN on the time. Three others — Haley Jones (Stanford), Katie Lou Samuelson (UConn) and Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis (UConn) — didn’t even have USC as finalists.
Within the 15 years main as much as Watkins’ senior season, 14 of the No. 1 gamers nationally selected simply 4 faculties — UConn, Stanford, Baylor and Tennessee.
“There was a small group of elite girls’s basketball packages that one of the best gamers go to. And also you’re clearly making an attempt to turn out to be a kind of, however it’s additionally exhausting to turn out to be a kind of with out one of the best gamers,” Gottlieb stated. “It actually takes an outlier of an individual to go to a kind of faculties earlier than they turn out to be that.”
However in 2014, A’ja Wilson — the nation’s No. 1 participant from Hopkins, S.C., simply 20 minutes from South Carolina’s campus — was that outlier. She selected South Carolina, a program in its sixth season below Daybreak Staley. The Gamecocks made their third NCAA Event look throughout Wilson’s senior 12 months of highschool, however this system had by no means been deeper than the Candy 16. However by her junior season in Columbia, she had delivered the Gamecocks their first nationwide championship.
And in 2023, Watkins selected USC, a program that has received one NCAA Event sport in her lifetime.
Like Wilson at South Carolina, there was a draw to staying dwelling, to constructing one thing not solely of their backyards but additionally for his or her backyards.
When Watkins seems into the Galen Heart stands, she sees acquainted faces — each the celebrities she acknowledges from TV but additionally her grandfather, Tim, who has attended each dwelling sport. She sees her cousins and pals from Watts, her mother and father, former teammates and lecturers.
Attendance for Trojans dwelling video games is up three-fold this 12 months, and whereas these numbers aren’t pushed fully by Watkins’ pals and acquaintances, they’re pushed largely by what Watkins has already executed for this system and town. How she has excited a fan base that will or might not recall the may’ve-been-dynasty that was virtually born in L.A. 4 many years in the past. A group that — like this present group — entertained, had star energy and featured gamers town felt it may declare as its personal.
“I simply have such a relationship with the place I’m from — it’s essential to me,” Watkins stated. “It’s simply ingrained. I really feel like if I’ve to, I’m gonna depart, however I’ll all the time discover my means again right here.”
On the Trojans’ first dwelling sport this season, USC honored the 1983 and 1984 title groups. Candace Parker, Vanessa Bryant and a pair of Chainz had been in attendance. Ladies and boys, grandpas, youngsters all lined the courtroom to get Watkins’ autograph. A number of weeks later, LeBron James sat courtside. Not lengthy after, it was comic Kevin Hart. For the UCLA rematch, rapper Saweetie sat courtside.
To Watkins, they’re all L.A. And, to them, she probably represents town, too. At the very least, that’s Watkins’ hope. That as she builds this program for town and its followers that she additionally represents and displays the place that constructed her.
“She is your favourite NBA participant’s favourite faculty participant,” Gottlieb stated. “She is the dude down the road who exhibits up in a sport in a Watkins jersey — she’s his favourite participant. She has youngsters screaming her identify and ready exterior. It’s nonetheless at the start, however it’s very palpable already.”
Attendance for Trojans dwelling video games is up three-fold this 12 months. (Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Occasions through Getty Photographs)
On Sunday in Los Angeles, seven miles from the place Watkins first discovered to shoot a basketball, 10,657 individuals streamed into the Galen Heart to see No. 9 USC play No. 2 UCLA. Two weeks earlier, the Bruins beat the Trojans by seven in Westwood. Watkins completed with 27 factors and 11 rebounds within the first lack of her faculty profession. Within the postgame information convention, she drummed her fingers on the desk and held again tears.
With Oregon and Oregon State coming to city quickly after, Gottlieb determined to attend till nearer to the rematch to point out the group video from the loss. However two days later, she met with Watkins and McKenzie Forbes, a fifth-year grad switch, to observe collectively. They dissected performs, examined moments that had been fixable and mentioned steps that wanted to be taken. This isn’t the identical group as two years in the past when Watkins sat in Gottlieb’s workplace as a recruit, however the sport plan hasn’t modified all that a lot.
After sweeping the Oregon faculties, Watkins walked into the amenities with a unique power. She requested Gottlieb once they’d be watching the UCLA sport movie as a group. She wished the corrections. She wished the rematch.
Gottlieb careworn to not put an excessive amount of on any single sport. It’s a protracted season, longer so for a freshman who hasn’t but discovered the ebbs and flows, hasn’t felt the grind of March.
“Don’t fear,” Watkins reassured her with a smile.
Within the rematch, USC’s Marshall — a 6-4 all-conference ahead and future WNBA participant — was sidelined with an sickness. Much more was foisted onto Watkins’ shoulders.
Within the USC locker room, Gottlieb felt an energized however centered depth. On the heart of it was Watkins. Her teammates not solely listening to her, however following her. “When she’s telling us, ‘Come on, let’s go, make your free throws, we’re getting this win,’” Forbes stated, “how do you not observe that lead?”
This is perhaps probably the most spectacular piece of Watkins’ success to date. A then-top-10 group that includes Marshall and Taylor Bigby (two third-year gamers who had been top-30 recruits) and three Ivy League grad transfers not solely look to an 18-year-old in these moments however need her to steer them.
“She’s such a competitor. She has this starvation to win,” Marshall says. “And it’s like, you thought you had been a competitor, you thought you had been hungry, however then you definitely get on the market together with her.”
Towards UCLA, Watkins completed with 32 factors, 10 rebounds, three blocks and three steals. After the Trojans’ 73-65 victory, Watkins collapsed onto the ground, her calves immediately cramping, as in the event that they knew precisely how far they wanted to take her. Her teammates huddled round her, celebrating.
Watkins celebrated, too, however acknowledged all of it as progress. And regardless of consecutive losses final week in opposition to ranked opponents at Utah and Colorado, progress stays the aim.
As a result of in Los Angeles, a metropolis is watching a younger star primed to steer a program out of dormancy. And there’s a group that is aware of precisely the place it desires the ball — in JuJu Watkins’ arms.
(Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; Photographs: Brian Rothmuller / Icon Sportswire through Getty Photographs)