The praise for the USC Trojans women’s basketball team has been effusive and appropriate this season. A 12-1 team with a chance to be really good is earning high marks, and this is with the nation’s No. 1-ranked recruiting class coming in before next season. A strong and durable program is being built in Los Angeles thanks to Rayah Marshall and other role players on the current squad, but we all know who the centerpiece of this revival truly is: JuJu Watkins. Her excellence and unselfishness have made her a great teammate and a genuine star on a nationwide level.
Watkins has been playing like the second-best player in the sport behind Iowa’s Caitlin Clark. She is, in fact, the second-leadining scorer in the country behind Clark. She is only a freshman. With Watkins balling on the court, Lindsay Gottlieb’s USC team is hoping to make serious noise as the Women of Troy aim to win the Pac-12 Conference and, at the very least, get a high seed in the 2024 Women’s NCAA Tournament.
One star who has taken notice of Watkins is Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James, who said this via the Los Angeles Times:
“She’s the next greatest thing in women’s basketball.”
It’s hard to argue with LeBron. Watkins really does seem to be in position to take the baton from Caitlin Clark as the next big thing in women’s college basketball. She’s going to be at USC for the next few years. She will have that elite recruiting class next season. It’s all lining up for her.
LeBron James isn’t speaking without having watched Watkins play, either. LeBron was in the Galen Center on December 10. He watched the first half of the women’s game against UC Riverside that afternoon afteer his son, Bronny James, made his USC debut on that afternoon versus Long Beach State.
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