USC Women's Basketball: Can JuJu Watkins Break Caitlin Clark's New Scoring Record?

Or are we crazy for asking?

In scoring 49 points last night during a (a new Iowa Hawkeyes record), six-foot senior superstar guard Caitlin Clark found herself improving her all-time career tally to a women's college basketball record of 3,569 points.

All told, she notched 49 points, 13 boards and five dimes during a 106-89 win over the Michigan Wolverines on Thursday night. Here's the moment she shattered the prior record, now-Las Vegas Aces All-Star guard Kelsey Plum's 3,527 career points, achieved over the course of 139 contests with the Washington Huskies from 2013-17. 

EVERY angle of Caitlin Clark’s record-breaking shot! 🎯@IowaWBB | @BigTen pic.twitter.com/b6w08STZUc

— NBC Sports (@NBCSports) February 16, 2024

Clark has "only" played in 126 games, and has four regular season contests yet with which she can further extend her new record.

On the year, the Naismith Women’s College Player of the Year favorite is averaging a league-leading 32.8 points on .475/.399/.857 shooting splits, along with 8.5 assists, 6.9 rebounds, 1.7 steals and 0.6 blocks per bout.

The second-leading scorer in college plays for your USC Trojans. That'd be freshman wing JuJu Watkins, another player on this season's Naismith CPFOTY shortlist.

It's insanely early to wonder this, but is there a possibility that Watkins, who's been an absolute lights-out scorer thus far during her brief collegiate run, could one day lap Clark?

Obviously health will play a major factor in any serious run, but leaving that aside, Watkins' 27.7 points per game across 21 contests (582 total) for the 18-4 Trojans is a point better than Clark's 26.6 points in 30 games during her freshman season, 2020-21. But there are so many innumerable possible extenuating circumstances (quality and scoring needs of her teammates being perhaps most imperative) that it's probably way too early to think about this. Let's put a pin in it until Watkins' year.