ROSEMONT, Ill. – At least until she delivers to the Big Ten a healthy dose of what her game represents, JuJu Watkins will be coping with the enormous void created in this league and NCAA women’s basketball in general when Caitlin Clark played her final game at Iowa. Because it’s Watkins' burden, more than anyone else at the college level, to fill it.
There is a sense of symmetry in the sport that Clark exited just as Watkins, as the star for new Big Ten entrant USC, arrives in the Big Ten. With her brilliance and charisma during four record-breaking seasons with the Hawkeyes, Clark destroyed audience barriers that stood for decades. The best way to assure those who watched don’t retreat to old viewing habits is to deliver another can't-miss talent over the same platforms.
Watkins could view that as added pressure.
Or one hell of an opportunity.
“I wouldn’t really say pressure. There’s so many great teams in this league, and I think my main focus is just winning with my team,” she told The Sporting News at Big Ten Media Day. “And wherever that takes us, we’re grateful – I’m grateful – for this opportunity. At the end of the day, it’s just me being able to play the sport that I love.”
In her freshman season at USC, while Clark was establishing a new career scoring record in NCAA Division I women’s basketball, Watkins was putting up even bigger numbers than Clark had as a freshman.
Watkins averaged 27.1 points and scored 920 for the season as the Trojans went 29-6 and reached the March Madness Elite Eight. She made her college debut with 32 points against Ohio State and concluded the year with 29 in a seven-point loss to UConn.
“She kind of proved to everybody that she’s one of those people that can kind of carry the torch, so to speak, for interest and media visibility,” Ohio State coach Kevin McGuff told TSN. “So it’ll be fun to watch her. In my opinion, the Big Ten will give her an even bigger stage than what she was in. And couple that with being in Los Angeles, she’s going to be somebody that’s going to really help to continue to drive the sport in the right direction.”
By the end of last year, Watkins was getting national television commercials just like Clark. Maybe not as many, but she shared a spot with Philadelphia 76ers star Joel Embiid, and another with UConn’s Sabrina Ionescu and Jalen Brunson of the New York Knicks.
Watkins told TSN there will be more of this in the 2024-25 season, although she was disinclined to share any specifics.
The best TV featuring Watkins, though, should be the Trojans games.
“I think the Big Ten has a great fan base, so having them jump on board USC will be great. I think having more eyes on us – I don’t think people really saw what we could do in the Pac-12, so it’ll be really exciting to kind of showcase that to the world in the Big Ten,” grad transfer Kiki Iriafen, named the nation’s top power forward last season at Stanford, told reporters. “We literally talked about this, this week: kind of like ‘Showtime’. We want people to come watch us and be like: Wow, this is an exciting team … definitely like fast-paced, high energy, relentless.”
At USC’s Galen Center, though, attendance averaged only 4,421, and the team’s road games, including nine in the Pac-12, were only slightly higher, at 6,435. Iowa road games drew basically twice as many fans. There are many factors involved in this; Clark had built her audience through four dazzling seasons and a trip to the 2023 NCAA Championship game. And she played in a league with venues like Maryland’s Xfinity Center, which held 17,950 for Clark’s visit, and Indiana’s Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, where 17,222 saw IU inflict upon Clark one of the tougher nights of her career.
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Watkins could be the player that keeps those fans coming out to see what’s next.
“There’s like easy comparisons, where you say: Oh, whoever we think Caitlin is – she’s Steph Curry. And JuJu is more like a Kobe or Michael Jordan,” USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb told TSN. “You can do those comparisons, but I would say that almost takes away from the uniqueness of them as athletes, and female athletes.
“Their games are different. JuJu at 6-2, and her athleticism and body control – the size and skill and physicality is just something we haven’t seen very often in this game.”
JuJu Watkins with 32 points 3 blocks 3 steals 3 assists & 10 rebounds in the win over 2nd ranked UCLA! @Jujubballin pic.twitter.com/A0Y9RtJLdk
— Courtside Films (@CourtsideFilms) January 15, 2024
If one peruses the list of true legends of women’s basketball, you find a lot of exorbitantly gifted bigs and forwards, including Lisa Leslie, Breanna Stewart, A'ja Wilson and Candace Parker, and elite playmaking guards including Sue Bird, Diana Taurasi and Dawn Staley. There aren’t a whole lot like Maya Moore.
That’s one factor that makes Watkins such an exiting player to watch develop, and why she could both challenge Clark’s records and continue to draw fans to NCAA women’s basketball.
“They both score the ball incredibly well. They both score somewhat differently. They both get to the free throw line,” Gottlieb said. “I think we’re going to see JuJu’s assist numbers go up even higher this year because she’s a multi-threat kind of player, and now she’s got different personnel around her.
“So they’re just really different players, but I think the gravity they carry is a little bit similar.”
