CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Contained in the Spectrum Heart, JuJu Watkins is screaming and clapping, shouting and doling out excessive fives, cheering and flexing. She’s doing no matter she will to pump up her USC teammates and implore the group to root laborious for her Trojans.
As a result of throughout video games this season, that’s the restrict of the ways in which the reigning Nationwide Participant of the Yr can influence her crew. After having surgical procedure to restore a torn ACL she suffered within the second spherical of the NCAA Event in March, Watkins is sidelined for the season, unable to dazzle followers or lead the Trojans to victories together with her supernatural scoring, sturdy rebounding or very good playmaking skills.
Final season, as a sophomore, Watkins led the Trojans in scoring, assists, steals and minutes performed. The 6-foot-2 guard was third in rebounding. When contests bought tight, USC leaned on her. Once they wanted a bucket, the Trojans anticipated her to make a play.
This season, Watkins just isn’t current on the hardwood to be relied upon. The expectation that she’s going to save the Trojans can now not exist. Lindsay Gottlieb will want another person to step up and do it.
And so, that is the place USC discovered itself on Sunday afternoon within the dwelling of the Charlotte Hornets with its again in opposition to the wall, trailing No. 9 N.C. State by 11 factors with 9 minutes to play after Wolfpack guard Zoe Brooks transformed an And-1. Watkins wasn’t on the ground and couldn’t be inserted into the sport. Another person was going to have to steer the Trojans.
“I simply stored saying, ‘We will do that,’ and I felt like they believed that,” Gottlieb stated. “… We have now loads of completely different shotmakers and playmakers. We have now some defensive stoppers. We will put individuals in several spots, and we tried to try this all recreation.”
This time, it wound up being Jazzy Davidson, who’s the newest in what looks like an limitless line of top-ranked recruits Gottlieb has lured to Southern Cal. In a nationally televised recreation in entrance of hundreds of followers in an NBA area, the 6-foot-1 true freshman guard put USC on her again and stated, “Comply with me.”
Davidson scored 18 of her 21 factors within the second half and got here by way of in an important means when the sport was at its tightest. With 8.2 seconds left and the Trojans trailing by a single level, Davidson lower laborious to the basket and bought forward of her defender — not all that dissimilar to a speedy huge receiver beating a cornerback off the road of scrimmage on the snap of the soccer — and caught Kennedy Smith’s inbounds go in-stride, then sank the go-ahead layup with relative ease.
Davidson’s first collegiate game-winner — of possible many extra to come back in her profession — can be on her spotlight reel for a very long time. And when followers of girls’s school basketball take into consideration how USC is reinventing itself this season with out Watkins on the ground, it is going to be a play that’s pointed to.
“I’m simply actually pleased with the crew’s togetherness and toughness that we confirmed at this time. You don’t know precisely what you will have till you’re put in these conditions, which is why we schedule them,” Gottlieb stated. “And I feel, you realize, it’s an opportunity for us to redefine our identification just a little bit. That was on full show at this time.”
Whereas Davidson’s second-half efficiency was heroic, what can also’t be ignored is how Londynn Jones guided the Trojans offensively within the first half, and the way Smith’s protection and may’t-quit perspective resulted within the game-sealing steal as she picked off Brooks’ determined inbounds go with underneath two seconds to play.
To say that USC’s 69-68 win over N.C. State was an announcement victory wouldn’t be hyperbolic. It confirmed everybody that, sure, even with out Watkins, the Trojans are nonetheless able to contending for a deep NCAA Event run. It proved that, sure, USC nonetheless has the expertise to be a crew persistently ranked within the AP High 25 Ballot. And sure, there are different gamers on this roster able to making game-winning performs that make crowds roar.
Furthermore, it was proof of idea that USC can nonetheless win significant video games on large phases with out a lot of the identical solid of gamers that guided them to back-to-back Elite Eight journeys over the previous two seasons.
“Everyone’s kind of in a brand new position. And we simply assume it’s an excellent alternative. That is the best way we wish to play,” Gottlieb stated. “We wish to play quick and fluid. We’re making an attempt to play a extra open, pro-style offense, the place there’s loads of reads and choices and placing individuals in several spots. We’re at all times going to play laborious and tenaciously on the defensive finish… I feel that’s what the gamers purchased into.”
Along with having a rare expertise like Watkins out for the yr, USC additionally despatched its frontcourt pairing of a season in the past, 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 one participant returning to the courtroom for the Trojans this yr who began a number of video games final season is Smith.
However Gottlieb adjusted and reloaded. Jones — who scored 14 factors within the first half in opposition to N.C. State on an ideal 4-of-4 capturing — came to visit from rival UCLA through the switch portal. All-ACC standout Kara Dunn arrived the identical means from Georgia Tech. Gerda Raulusaityte, a 6-foot-3 ahead who was the MVP of the Lithuanian Ladies’s Basketball League, enrolled at USC as a junior. Malia Samuels, who stripped the ball from Brooks on a possible game-winning drive to the basket late, has seen her position develop.
After which, after all, there’s Davidson.
Tabbed because the No. 1 recruit within the nation by ESPN, the native of Clackamas, Oregon started making her case on Sunday as the highest freshman in ladies’s school basketball. After capturing 1-of-10 from the ground within the first half, Davidson appeared to enter the third quarter with a brand new mindset and a renewed swagger. She began the second half off by connecting on her first 5 shot makes an attempt, scoring contained in the paint and from behind the arc, exhibiting off her lanky body, comfortable contact and confidence.
“When you will have an excellent participant like that, realizing that pictures are going to fall, you simply need to preserve her, you realize, Jazzy,” the veteran Jones stated of Davidson. “What she’s carried out already thus far has been superb, and she or he has a lot to look ahead to.”
Added N.C. State coach Wes Moore: “She had an excellent recreation. She took us off the bounce, after which if we did attempt to perhaps include just a little bit extra, she knocked down some 3s.”
Whereas Jones and Davidson impressed with their shotmaking, being stout on protection is what USC counted on in opposition to N.C. State. The Wolfpack made simply 5 3-pointers, scored solely eight second-chance factors on 17 offensive rebounds, and turned the ball over 18 occasions — which USC then flipped into 15 factors.
The anchor of the Trojans’ protection gave the impression to be Smith, whose influence on that finish of the ground wasn’t misplaced on Gottlieb, regardless of it not essentially exhibiting up within the field rating. The sophomore completed with 10 factors, eight boards and one steal in half-hour, however was a relentless disruptor in opposition to N.C. State’s offensive assault.
“I feel what makes Kennedy such an elite participant is that she will influence the sport with out scoring,” Gottlieb stated. “She’s distinctive in that she will make different elite gamers higher… She’s elite defensively. She’s all around the boards, and there’s only a competitiveness about her that I feel different individuals are like, ‘Okay, we will get a cease, we will make a play,’ it doesn’t matter what’s occurring on the offensive finish.”
USC’s subsequent recreation is in opposition to an excellent harder ranked opponent as No. 2 South Carolina visits Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Enviornment on Saturday for the primary of two neutral-site video games over the following two years between the Trojans and Gamecocks. And it’s fairly attainable that the Trojans will lose that recreation to Daybreak Staley, Ta’Niya Latson and co.
However there’s additionally an actual probability that they win it.
Both means, within the lengthy view of this season, with Davidson, Jones and Smith main the best way on the courtroom, with Gottlieb instilling a defensive-first mindset and placing her finest gamers in positions to achieve success, the Ladies of Troy are going to be simply high quality as Watkins cheers from the bench.
