The USC women’s basketball team has been great with a capital “G” this season. The Trojans are 12-1 through 13 games, and their only loss was to No. 2 UCLA in a fantastic game which lived up to the billing. We can’t say enough good things about this team, which has been hugely impressive this season and has a chance to be special.
What follows, then, is not — and should not be viewed as — criticism. It is more an analysis of where this team needs to improve. USC is not underachieving at all. This team is overachieving and is ahead of schedule. However, there are some warning signs about this team, and we feel it’s important to point them out so that if a few losses emerge in the coming weeks, no one is caught off guard or alarmed.
Our discussion begins with a simple point that JuJu Watkins is naturally asked to do a lot for this team. That’s not wrong or inappropriate. Watkins is a superstar-caliber player and a team leader. She needs the ball. She wants the responsibility. She loves working hard at both ends of the floor and is a great example. It’s not as though the USC coaching staff (which has been terrific this season) is misplaying anything. However, adjustments do need to be made when looking ahead.
Watkins was physically spent at the end of both the UCLA and Oregon State games. USC obviously has to give consideration to managing her workload in the coming weeks. She has to be able to be close to full strength on a regular basis.
This past weekend was a normal weekend in the Pac-12 in terms of scheduling. Friday games are at night, Sunday games in the afternoon. That’s around 38 to 44 hours between games. If USC is going to ride Watkins in Friday games, it needs to be ready and willing to play her fewer minutes for the Sunday game. If USC wants Watkins to be fresh for the Sunday game, it needs to pull back on her Friday minutes. Pushing her too hard risks an injury, whose importance doesn’t need to be explained.
A minutes adjustment for Watkins would mean more minutes allocated to the bench. Lindsay Gottlieb and Beth Burns need to come up with good bench combinations for non-Watkins minutes. They found a good combo in the Long Beach game in December when McKenzie Forbes scored 36 points, so there is information this coaching staff can work with.
As for on-court adjustments, one thing we have seen the past few games is JuJu Watkins taking a lot of field goal attempts and not getting to the free throw line very much. Watkins, in her last two games, attempted 51 field goals and only six free throws.
USC has to get Watkins in positions where she can draw fouls, also where — if an opposing big deters her — she can lob or otherwise feed the ball to Rayah Marshall for an easy layup on the backside.
Defenses want to make JuJu work extremely hard for every basket. Gottlieb and her staff have to ensure that Watkins can create baskets more easily than what we have seen the past few games in Pac-12 play.
This is a very good team with a superb coaching staff. The weaknesses needing to be addressed are evident. Let’s see what the Trojans are able to do.
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