Los Angeles, CA- USC’s Senior JuJu Watkins may only needed to play in two games before finding “her feet” as she appeared to return to true form during this evening’s home opener at the Galen Center versus Utah State after posting a 32 point, 16 rebound double-double in a 118-40 victory following a night of recognition being honored as outstanding student presented by USC Black Alumni Association.
“Last night was beautiful celebrating 50 years of the Black Alumni Association and to be honored at it,” Watkins said to fi360news during postgame presser. “I felt very humbled and to be around such great people. So to be able to play tonight, it was just really exciting to be back in Galen, have the goat [Cheryl Miller] show up again. I never take that for granted.”
Women of Troy went to work straight from tipoff with less than 15 seconds off the gamecock, Sophomore Jazzy Davidson drilled a thrilling three-pointer that immediately got the nearly 8,000 crowd going up at the Galen Center and USC would never look behind as they led the entire game.
Watkins led six USC players in double figures including Returning Sophomore Lauren Williams who boosted her team up to another level of pure energy, scoring 10 points off 100% field goals percentage and five rebounds in just 15 minutes off the bench. USC had also four players playing unselfishly with four or more assists for a combined team total of 29 dishes.
“I thought the best of us was on display tonight,” USC Head Coach Lindsay Gottlieb said.
USC was dialed in from the onset and more of their team chemistry showcased as well as better shot selections.
Freshmen Saniya Hall continued her impressive season debut with a 20 piece and five rebounds while other starting Freshmen Sara Okeke had a better debut than her first exhibition game at Galen with a near double-double, scoring 12 points off 5-of-5 shooting and grabbing eight boards.
While Watkins and Hall dominated with shooting and scoring points, the other part of their trio, Davidson, did most of her damage distributing after dissecting Aggies defense to collect back-to-back assists of her six in total on the final two possessions entering halftime to put her team up, 55-22.
“We shared the ball. We have explosive firepower on offense. We really challenged them to be better on defense coming in and for the most part we were. So, we got to hunt, make improvement every single game whether it’s a close one or not a close one,” Coach Gottlieb said.
Utah State went zone most of the second half, giving USC a different look on defense that slowed up their onslaught just a tad before Kennedy Smith got into some of that offensive action, scoring on an out of bounds play from the baseline then later knocking down a triple to give Women of Troy their 100th point early in the fourth quarter.
By the 2:00 mark of the final quarter, Coach Gottlieb had seen enough and finally emptied her bench with her team leading, 112-38.
USC (2-0) welcomes another non-league opponent on Tuesday when they matchup against College of Charleston.