USC Women's Basketball: JuJu Watkins' Generosity In Evidence Prior To UCLA Clash

JuJu is as good a teammate as she is a player.

The USC Lady Trojans escaped with an 80-70 double-overtime win over their rivals, the UCLA Bruins, last night in the Pac-12 Tournament Semis. It was a wire-to-wire game that deserved to go into extra time. Luckily, the Lady Trojans prevailed and will move on to the Pac-12 title game. 

The day of their thriller against their crosstown rivals, USC star freshman JuJu Watkins delivered off the court before she did on the court. According to Luca Evans of the OC Register, head coach Lindsay Gottlieb said Watkins handed out shoes to everyone in the USC women's program. 

Lindsay Gottlieb said postgame that JuJu Watkins bought the entire USC women's program shoes and distributed them this morning.

— Luca Evans (@bylucaevans) March 9, 2024

Watkins is as good a teammate as she is a player. Without her, the Trojans would not be in their current position. The Lady Trojans largely came out on top on Friday because of JuJu. She tallied 33 points on 9-for-27 shooting, 10 rebounds, one assist, two steals, and two blocks in 41 minutes. 

After a hot first quarter, the Trojans had trouble putting points on the board for the remainder of the regulation. Nonetheless, Watkins and the rest of the team came out with the win, and I think we could thank the shoes for that. 

USC will now look to grab its first Pac-12 tournament title since the 2013-2014 season. They'll look to do so over their NorCal foes, the Stanford Cardinal. Barring an NCAA tournament matchup, it will be the last time they face each other in a long time.