Watkins gets plenty of help as Trojans rout Arizona
LOS ANGELES >> Jada Williams was the pest who wouldn't leave, the nagging fly in JuJu Watkins' ear, buzzing and hovering and visibly frustrating one of the best scorers in the nation.
Williams had seen, firsthand, the devastation Watkins could bring, the two meetings as seniors last year when Williams' La Jolla Country Day team fell in a heavyweight prep matchup to Watkins and Sierra Canyon. And now-Arizona freshman
THE SCORE USC 81, ARIZONA 64 USC at Oregon, Friday, 7 p.m., Pac-12 Oregon
Up next: Williams operated Monday night as the head of a string of Wildcats defenders shadowing Watkins in the halfcourt, never letting the 6-foot-2 threat out of her sight, keeping one point of contact to Watkins at all times and visibly annoying the USC freshman.
They threw the entire toolkit at Watkins and USC head coach Lindsay Gottlieb,
part of a rotating array of Pac-12 defenses, each with their own unique directive on containing a player who came into the night averaging 37 points across her last three games. Williams face-guarded Watkins, and multiple Wildcats stepped into the lane when she was on the perimeter, visibly daring any other USC shooter to beat them. And they were beaten. After USC's victory over UCLA in mid-January, Gottlieb affectionately dubbed her group “JuJu and the Nerds,” a slew of
Ivy League transfers supporting Watkins' heliocentric efforts in USC's offense. Those nerds, though, pack a mighty punch — and Kayla Padilla (15 points, 7 assists), Kaitlyn Davis (8 points, 5 rebounds) and McKenzie Forbes (9 points, 4 assists) stole the spotlight in an 8164 victory over Arizona (1212 overall, 4-8 Pac-12) on Monday night.
“JuJu is so spectacular that people are going to come with all kinds of gameplans, right,” Gottlieb said postgame. “And I think we're showing that she's hard to stop from scoring, but we also have other players that are super dangerous.”
Watkins led No. 10 USC (18-4, 8-4) with 32 points, but shot 9 for 23 from the field and committed seven turnovers, clearly bothered at times by the Wildcats' defensive alignment.
After a quiet first half, inside presence Rayah Marshall got going in the fourth quarter to finish with 12 points and 10 rebounds, and Forbes added three triples as USC won its fourth straight.