LOS ANGELES — To really understand the impact JuJu Watkins has had on USC women’s basketball in just a few short months, consider the concession stands.
No, seriously.
A year ago, the Women of Troy played and defeated Oregon at home on a mid-February Friday night – a T-shirt giveaway, no less – and drew 1,126 fans, and my search for an open snack bar at the Galen Center was truly a search – one on the lower level just happened to be open. Smaller crowds, fewer concession staffers needed, right?
Sunday afternoon, when USC played Utah – and Watkins broke the school record for 30-point games in a 74-68 loss to the Utes – there were 7,129 in the house, food stands were fully stocked and staffed … and lots of those in attendance were little girls waving signs, boys and girls – and adults – wearing JuJu jerseys, and certified basketball royalty in the courtside seats.
Yes, Cheryl Miller has four season tickets directly across from the USC bench. The fulcrum of the school’s two NCAA championship teams in 1983 and ’84 – and indisputably the greatest player of her era – is prominent in her presence and one of a number of program alumni encouraged to come back by head coach Lindsay Gottlieb and lead assistant Beth Burns.
They may have been attracted because they’re loyal alums, but they’re mainly there because of JuJu.
This is a prime era for women’s college basketball, with more televised games, more attention, and as Gottlieb noted in a phone conversation this week, more investment in the women’s game than ever before. On the other side of the country, Iowa’s Caitlin Clark has set the NCAA Division I women’s career scoring record and is creating a nice living for scalpers wherever the Hawkeyes go. Connecticut’s Paige Bueckers and LSU’s Angel Reese are among others who have taken advantage of the attention.
But JuJu is the vanguard of the next generation of superstars. More significantly, she’s an L.A. kid who, rather than migrating to one of the sport’s established powers to chase a championship, opted to stay home and help build something.
The amazing thing is that for all of the attention she gets here – including the throngs of well-wishers and autograph seekers who wait for her to come out of the Galen Center after home games – she’s a well-kept secret nationally so far. USC has played only two national TV games this season and most of its exposure has come from the Pac-12 Network, meaning a large swath of the country only sees JuJu highlights on SportsCenter or YouTube.
There are plenty of highlights. Going into USC’s Thursday night game at Arizona, she has a school-record 12 30-point games (eclipsing Miller’s 10 in a season), a single-game school record 51 points in a victory at Stanford, three Pac-12 Player of the Week awards and 13 conference Freshman of the Week honors.
Watkins leads the Pac-12 in scoring (28.2) and is 10th in rebounding (7.0), third in free-throw percentage (.861), third in steals per game (2.64), seventh in blocked shots (1.64) and seventh in minutes played (34.01). Nationally, she’s second in scoring to Iowa’s Clark (at 32.1 a game) and is 35th in free-throw percentage and 27th in steals per game.
She is a 94-foot player, a potential difference maker at both ends of the floor with a significant skill set.
“It’s been fun to watch JuJu,” Elise Woodward, a former player at Washington and now a broadcaster for ESPN and the Pac-12 Network, messaged on the Platform Formerly Known As Twitter.
“JuJu has elite body control that is world class. The way she can elevate so quickly to get her jump shot off even with the defender close is special. The ability to change pace and tempo to freeze defenders, even when they have good position, and then explode by them, allows her to get easier looks in the paint than most other players. And when she misses, she pursues her own rebounds with a vengeance and her body control allows her to grab rebounds in tight spaces without fouling.
“She is a shot maker at all three levels, with the height of a forward but the skills of a point guard.”
And she seems to have accepted the responsibility of lifting the performances of those around her.
“We have a really good team and we have other good players around her, but she was put in a situation where she’s had to shoulder the load from Day One, whereas some of those other players walk onto a top 10 team, a top 15 team,” Gottlieb said. “She’s all over the floor impacting the game in a lot of different ways. … I think the threat of her being able to drop 40 at any time affects game plans, which opens things up for other people.
“She raises the level of play of those around her. I mean, she’s a complete player that most importantly has impacted winning. And I think for a young player to come in and have individual success, but more importantly lift the team is, I think, her greatest accomplishment.”
The legend and the up-and-comer haven’t interacted a lot – “maybe 10 minutes, max,” Miller said – but there’s a link, given the expectations when Cheryl arrived at USC. The legend’s advice: Give JuJu time.
“You know, Caitlin wasn’t Caitlin until her last two seasons,” Miller said. “Everything looks great on paper. Everything looks great for right now. But let’s see where she elevates her team. … Her junior and senior years, she’ll pretty much have it figured out. But right now a lot of that falls on Lindsay’s shoulders. You want JuJu to be JuJu, and that’s a fine line. Lindsay’s got to say, ‘Hey I’ve got to keep those reins a little tight. I’ll have them a little loose. But I have to be able to reel her in.’”
The parallels? When Miller got to USC, she had a respected coach in Linda Sharp – “Anything she told me to do, I never rolled my eyes because I knew she had my best interests at heart,” she said – and two strong veteran teammates in twins Pam and Paula McGee. If she strayed, she heard about it.
“I needed that, too,” she said, “because you can’t help when you’re coming in with all of that attention and all of the accolades to somehow think, yeah, you are the center of the universe. And then you find out very quickly you’re not.”
It is a different environment now, of course.
Miller said she’s impressed that JuJu understands that all of those little girls are looking up to her and that she has an opportunity, and responsibility, to set an example, be it in interviews, one-on-one interactions or social media posts.
“She has an incredible following,” Gottlieb said. “I think the diversity of it is really interesting. It’s boys. It’s girls. It’s older, it’s younger. It’s just – it’s cool to have a JuJu jersey. It’s cool to be a fan here now. But also I think it speaks to JuJu and her family understanding the bigger picture. … it’s JuJu who wants to spend the time and interact with people. And I think she understands her place in all of this, you know, maybe beyond her years.”
Gottlieb mentioned a road game at Colorado where the players were already on the bus, ready to leave for the airport, when an assistant coach saw a little girl waiting for Watkins.
“He came on the bus and said, ‘Hey, JuJu, would you come out and sign for her?’ ” Gottlieb said. “And she said of course. She comes out, and as soon as she’s signing for the one kid, 50 other people started running down a hill to come to her. And we’re like, ‘Oh, man, we didn’t know we were opening her up to that.’
“But this is what we’re starting to see, and I only think it’s going to grow from here.”
If the JuJu Phenomenon does become the hottest ticket from coast to coast, it will only be positive for a sport that is beginning to hit its stride in the public consciousness – and, with the success of USC and UCLA, establishing a beachhead in the nation’s second-largest market.
For years, the star stories have been concentrated in Storrs, Conn., Knoxville, Tenn., and more recently in such far-flung outposts as Eugene, Iowa City and Baton Rouge.
“People used L.A. in some ways as a negative, like, ‘Oh, you know, women’s college basketball can’t be big in L.A. because there’s too many other things going on,’” Gottlieb said. “Or, historically, the L.A. schools haven’t drawn crowds. And I think she’s turned that narrative on its head, because L.A. loves winners and L.A. loves a show, and there’s no bigger winner or no bigger show than JuJu right now.”
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And there’s also this:
“During this era of (women’s) college basketball players with a huge following, we haven’t seen a young Black female with this type of attention,” Gottlieb said. “And I think that’s significant for her community. … It definitely has, I think, implications beyond just our team this season, kind of what you’re talking about as sort of the next wave of women’s college basketball.”
The JuJu Phenomenon is just beginning. Get ready.
jalexander@scng.com