CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Inside the Spectrum Center, JuJu Watkins is screaming and clapping, shouting and dishing out high fives, cheering and flexing. She’s doing whatever she can to pump up her USC teammates and implore the crowd to root hard for her Trojans.
Because during games this season, that’s the limit of the ways that the reigning National Player of the Year can impact her team. After having surgery to repair a torn ACL she suffered in the second round of the NCAA Tournament in March, Watkins is sidelined for the season, unable to dazzle fans or lead the Trojans to victories with her supernatural scoring, strong rebounding or superb playmaking abilities.
Last season, as a sophomore, Watkins led the Trojans in scoring, assists, steals and minutes played. The 6-foot-2 guard was third in rebounding. When contests got tight, USC leaned on her. When they needed a bucket, the Trojans expected her to make a play.
This season, Watkins is not present on the hardwood to be relied upon. The expectation that she will save the Trojans can no longer exist. Lindsay Gottlieb will need someone else to step up and do it.
And so, this is where USC found itself on Sunday afternoon in the home of the Charlotte Hornets with its back against the wall, trailing No. 9 N.C. State by 11 points with nine minutes to play after Wolfpack guard Zoe Brooks converted an And-1. Watkins wasn’t on the floor and couldn’t be inserted into the game. Someone else was going to have to lead the Trojans.
“I just kept saying, ‘We can do this,’ and I felt like they believed that,” Gottlieb said. “… We have a lot of different shotmakers and playmakers. We have some defensive stoppers. We can put people in different spots, and we tried to do that all game.”
This time, it wound up being Jazzy Davidson, who is the latest in what seems like an endless line of top-ranked recruits Gottlieb has lured to Southern Cal. In a nationally televised game in front of thousands of fans in an NBA arena, the 6-foot-1 true freshman guard put USC on her back and said, “Follow me.”
Davidson scored 18 of her 21 points in the second half and came through in a crucial way when the game was at its tightest. With 8.2 seconds left and the Trojans trailing by a single point, Davidson cut hard to the basket and got ahead of her defender — not all that dissimilar to a speedy wide receiver beating a cornerback off the line of scrimmage at the snap of the football — and caught Kennedy Smith’s inbounds pass in-stride, then sank the go-ahead layup with relative ease.
Davidson’s first collegiate game-winner — of likely many more to come in her career — will be on her highlight reel for a long time. And when fans of women’s college basketball think about how USC is reinventing itself this season without Watkins on the floor, it will be a play that’s pointed to.
“I’m just really proud of the team’s togetherness and toughness that we showed today. You don’t know exactly what you have until you’re put in these situations, which is why we schedule them,” Gottlieb said. “And I think, you know, it’s a chance for us to redefine our identity a little bit. That was on full display today.”
While Davidson’s second-half performance was heroic, what also can’t be overlooked is how Londynn Jones guided the Trojans offensively in the first half, and how Smith’s defense and can’t-quit attitude resulted in the game-sealing steal as she picked off Brooks’ desperate inbounds pass with under two seconds to play.
To say that USC’s 69-68 win over N.C. State was a statement victory wouldn’t be hyperbolic. It showed everyone that, yes, even without Watkins, the Trojans are still capable of contending for a deep NCAA Tournament run. It proved that, yes, USC still has the talent to be a team consistently ranked in the AP Top 25 Poll. And yes, there are other players on this roster capable of making game-winning plays that make crowds roar.
Moreover, it was proof of concept that USC can still win meaningful games on big stages without much of the same cast of players that guided them to back-to-back Elite Eight trips over the past two seasons.
“Everybody’s sort of in a new role. And we just think it’s a great opportunity. This is the way we want to play,” Gottlieb said. “We want to play fast and fluid. We’re trying to play a more open, pro-style offense, where there’s a lot of reads and options and putting people in different spots. We’re always going to play hard and tenaciously on the defensive end… I think that’s what the players bought into.”
In addition to having an extraordinary talent like Watkins out for the year, USC also sent its frontcourt pairing of a season ago, Kiki Iriafen and Rayah Marshall, to the WNBA. Then Avery Howell and Kayleigh Heckel transferred to Washington and UConn, respectively. And Talia von Oelhoffen exhausted her eligibility.
The only player returning to the court for the Trojans this year who started multiple games last season is Smith.
But Gottlieb adjusted and reloaded. Jones — who scored 14 points in the first half against N.C. State on a perfect 4-of-4 shooting — came over from rival UCLA via the transfer portal. All-ACC standout Kara Dunn arrived the same way from Georgia Tech. Gerda Raulusaityte, a 6-foot-3 forward who was the MVP of the Lithuanian Women’s Basketball League, enrolled at USC as a junior. Malia Samuels, who stripped the ball from Brooks on a potential game-winning drive to the basket late, has seen her role grow.
And then, of course, there’s Davidson.
Tabbed as the No. 1 recruit in the country by ESPN, the native of Clackamas, Oregon began making her case on Sunday as the top freshman in women’s college basketball. After shooting 1-of-10 from the floor in the first half, Davidson seemed to enter the third quarter with a new mindset and a renewed swagger. She started the second half off by connecting on her first five shot attempts, scoring inside the paint and from behind the arc, showing off her lanky frame, soft touch and confidence.
“When you have a great player like that, knowing that shots are going to fall, you just have to keep her, you know, Jazzy,” the veteran Jones said of Davidson. “What she’s done already so far has been amazing, and she has so much to look forward to.”
Added N.C. State coach Wes Moore: “She had a great game. She took us off the bounce, and then if we did try to maybe contain a little bit more, she knocked down some 3s.”
While Jones and Davidson impressed with their shotmaking, being stout on defense is what USC counted on against N.C. State. The Wolfpack made just five 3-pointers, scored only eight second-chance points on 17 offensive rebounds, and turned the ball over 18 times — which USC then flipped into 15 points.
The anchor of the Trojans’ defense seemed to be Smith, whose impact on that end of the floor wasn’t lost on Gottlieb, despite it not necessarily showing up in the box score. The sophomore finished with 10 points, eight boards and one steal in 30 minutes, but was a constant disruptor against N.C. State’s offensive attack.
“I think what makes Kennedy such an elite player is that she can impact the game without scoring,” Gottlieb said. “She’s unique in that she can make other elite players better… She’s elite defensively. She’s all over the boards, and there’s just a competitiveness about her that I think other people are like, ‘Okay, we can get a stop, we can make a play,’ no matter what’s happening on the offensive end.”
USC’s next game is against an even tougher ranked opponent as No. 2 South Carolina visits Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena on Saturday for the first of two neutral-site games over the next two years between the Trojans and Gamecocks. And it’s quite possible that the Trojans will lose that game to Dawn Staley, Ta’Niya Latson and co.
But there’s also a real chance that they win it.
Either way, in the long view of this season, with Davidson, Jones and Smith leading the way on the court, with Gottlieb instilling a defensive-first mindset and putting her best players in positions to be successful, the Women of Troy are going to be just fine as Watkins cheers from the bench.
