Los Angeles, CA- USC Athletics held a summer press conference on Monday two days before end of June for the Women’s Basketball head coach Lindsay Gottlieb and a few students-athletes including the long-awaited return of hometown hero JuJu Watkins at the Galen Center.
Coach Gottlieb opened the press conference first with dishing about her team’s current focus on establishing new habits and standards plus two new additions from the transfer portal, Ryann Bennett, Pania Davis.
“We are starting week three of our eight week summer session with the team,” said coach Gottlieb, “I’m really excited to come to work every day. It’s a great group…we have established our standards. We talk about our habits every day. We’re certainly not shying away from the exciting expectations that lie in front of us, but our day-to-day is about getting better as individual players, getting better as a team, building chemistry on and off the court. Not a better place to be than Los Angeles in the summer.”
Coach Gottlieb expressed her excitement about the growth of media coverage on women’s basketball as well in a place where people told her no one would care and even took time to offer advice to WNBA Los Angeles Sparks Head Coach and friend, Lynne Roberts, on how to sustain during a season when your star player succumbs to a crucial injury.
“The season always throws things at you that you’re not necessarily expecting, nor would you want,” said Gottlieb during the presser. I hope that Kelsey’s [Plum] back sooner than later. She’s such a competitor and such a great player…As a coach, you have to figure out, how to get the best out of your team in a player’s absence and still continue to pour into that player when they’re not playing. And I know Lynn will do that. Kelsey’s such a hard worker, such a competitor. They need her out there, but they’re also going to compete and figure things out until she’s back.”
While the Sparks and women’s basketball fans await “KP” to come back for WNBA season, they can celebrate and appreciate the return of another superstar JuJu Watkins whose back to cooking in the lab while remaining humble in her expression of gratitude to those whom supported during her ACL recovery process.
“Honestly, like I’ve had so much like love. I’ve been surrounded by so much love throughout the whole process, even from when it first started to now”, said Watkins, “I would say honestly Paige [Bueckers] was like a big person for me. She constantly checking up on me, sending me texts, just encouraging me. So, I really appreciated that, but honestly, every person in the WNBA world who had gone through that or shared a similar experience just had nothing but love and support for me.“
Love and support of Watkins stretched to the pro leagues from across the NCAA but her teammates were first in line, not to be outdid with enormous anticipation or appreciation to have their veteran leader back on the court. Something Coach Gottlieb mused about her team’s eagerness shown during their practice runs and individual workouts.
“I feel like we all have that competitiveness like nature to us”, said Kennedy Smith, “I feel like we all want to win, we push each other in practice, go 110% every time.”
Superstar Sophomore Jazzy Davidson piggybacked on Smith’s comments about this new look roster and their new habits.
“I think the competitive edge that we all bring to practice every single day. The way we’re willing to compete and just having fun in that, Davidson said.
Incoming Freshman Saniyah Hall added to Smith and Davidson assessment about their summer workouts as she credited them with easing her transition into Division 1 collegiate women’s basketball in the Big 12.
“I would definitely say me being new, not really knowing what to do, you know, having to adapt…just being able to like ask them questions and they can help me just being my support,” said Hall.
Having this mid-year press conference, gave these student-athletes the support of local media but also a chance to express briefly some of their personality without going into details about their status or future outlook of the season.
Even with Davidson making a few major event appearances including to a recent WNBA Sparks game and the NBA draft, led to her being asked about the latter motivate her after supporting her boyfriend.
“Playing in the WNBA is definitely one of my goals”, said Davidson, “So yeah, I hope to be there too in three years, however long for sure.”
Davidson and her teammates will have some time to prepare for that next level in the Pros, for now it’s about this season with a new set of standards, a newly constructed roster of elite talent and a competitiveness that this team hopes to keep without burning out prematurely. Stay tuned!
