USC athletics has a lot of great athletes and teams. Beach volleyball and water polo are annual national championship contenders and should be celebrated as the best of the best Trojan teams at the school. All those athletes deserve recognition for what they achieve.
Caleb Williams is one of the all-time Trojan greats, a Heisman Trophy winner who carried the football team for two years.
Boogie Ellis and Kobe Johnson have helped USC make multiple NCAA Tournaments, one of them being in 2023. USC was able to make March Madness even though Vince Iwuchukwu was limited by injuries and the Trojans didn’t have an elite big man or a lot of depth on their roster.
Austin Overn is a special baseball player who improved USC in 2023, along with a strong pitching staff. New coach Andy Stankiewicz significantly enhanced the program and has it on the right track.
These are all great Trojans. They all deserve our gratitude at Christmas, as the year 2023 arrives at its final week.
However, if one athlete or figure stands above the rest as the best Trojan of 2023, how can it not be anyone other than JuJu Watkins? It’s not as though the other aforementioned Trojan athletes and teams aren’t special — they are! — but JuJu really is in a league of her own.
As a freshman, she is already setting USC records in the first 10 games of her collegiate career. Crucially, the records are translating to team success, not just personal accolades. Watkins has USC ranked in the top six of the country and is taking the Trojans to places they haven’t inhabited in nearly 30 years. Under coach Lindsay Gottlieb, Watkins is leading a revival of USC women’s basketball, giving the program a vastly increased national profile and a chance to become a factor in what is already a loaded Pac-12 Conference.
JuJu Watkins is the second-leading scorer in women’s college basketball. Guess who’s number one: Caitlin Clark of Iowa.
Watkins could have gone anywhere to play college hoops. She stayed home in Los Angeles to build something at USC. The construction project is ahead of schedule. The fun is only just beginning, with USC starting Pac-12 play Saturday, December 30, against UCLA.
USC might lose to UCLA, and it will probably lose several games in a cutthroat Pac-12. Even then, USC is still likely to be a top-four seed in the 2024 NCAA Tournament. Gottlieb has the No. 1-ranked recruiting class coming in to help JuJu next season and beyond.
JuJu Watkins is the centerpiece of a dramatic transformation of a once-proud program poised to become elite once again. Santa gave USC Lindsay Gottlieb a few years ago, in 2021. In 2023, JuJu Watkins is the ultimate Christmas gift for USC sports.
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