JuJu Watkins stared blankly toward the court, the frustration evident on her face. It’s rare anything penetrates the preternatural calm with which Watkins plays, but it was clear the superstar sophomore was pressing, in the throes of her worst slump yet at USC.
Now, as a Fox camera zoomed in on her and coach Lindsay Gottlieb, her gaze and frustration were on full display.
Vanessa Nygaard recognized that rare bit of frustration, bottled up within. And she also knew, in Watkins’ case, there was nothing to worry about.
Nygaard was the coach at Windward High when Watkins was a freshman, first finding herself in high school hoops. Even then, Nygaard says, Watkins was so naturally composed, so uncommonly put together for a teenager, that the coach Nygaard actually urged her to let out the frustration once in a while.
“But she always remained so coachable, so engaged,” Nygaard says. “JuJu was always so motivated to win that she never let stuff get to her. She’d bottle it up and keep going. That was part of the fuel that made her really special.”
Watkins once again has been the engine of an extraordinary season at USC, as the Trojans approach March with their sights set on a Final Four run. As their superstar has sputtered over a frustrating four-game stretch, the supporting cast has filled in seamlessly around her — just as Gottlieb envisioned — setting aside their own frustrating starts to find roles in the absence of Watkins’ usual mastery.
That turning point, as point guard Talia von Oelhoffen termed it, couldn’t come at a more critical time for No. 6 USC, with top-ranked UCLA awaiting the Trojans on Thursday in one of the most-anticipated matchups of the college basketball calendar. Beating the undefeated Bruins, one of the deepest and most talented teams in the sport, always was going to require more than Watkins simply willing the Trojans to victory.
But make no mistake, USC is going to need more from its star sophomore if it has any hope of unseating UCLA atop the Big Ten.
“We’re a really good team but we need everybody performing at their highest level to get wherever we want to go,” Gottlieb said. “That’s always the goal. People are going to have off days. We’re a team. We’ve got a lot of people who have each other’s backs.”
That much was clear Saturday as USC rolled a top-10 Ohio State team without Watkins at her best.
It took time for all the Trojans’ puzzle pieces, no matter how talented, to fit. The process of putting them together hasn’t always been seamless.
“You have a lot of people that are used to probably playing bigger roles than we all have played this year,” von Oelhoffen said.
A standout transfer from Oregon State, von Oelhoffen fought through her own frustration as she adjusted to a new role. She worried that she was disappearing into it and losing herself.
“I don’t think it’s a secret that I’ve struggled,” she said.
After USC lost to Iowa this month, von Oelhoffen went to Gottlieb to talk about it. She opened up in a team meeting. She didn’t want to look back on her last season with any regrets.
“We’ve had some team conversations and just a lot of dialogue within the team over the last couple weeks,” von Oelhoffen said. “I think that’s helped us and brought us closer.”
Kiki Iriafen knew, like von Oelhoffen, that she would have to make sacrifices when she transferred from Stanford. But even for a blue-chip prospect in the upcoming WNBA draft like Iriafen, it still took some adjusting to find where she fit.
At one point last month, she too sat down with Gottlieb to hash out how she was feeling. Now, Iriafen says, she’s “more settled in.”
“I’m playing much more carefree than I did earlier in the season,” she said.
For Watkins, though, the tension seems to have ratcheted up in recent games. She started 0 for 11 in the win over Ohio State and 0 for 10 in a win over Minnesota, one shot after another refusing to fall. Over her last four games, Watkins is shooting just 31% from the floor and 16% from three-point range.
No one at USC is doubting that Watkins will pull herself out of this slump soon enough — “She’s always going to be ready,” Gottlieb said this week — as the star sophomore still is fifth in Division I in scoring at 23.9 points per game.
But as Gottlieb points out, the attention drawn by Watkins also has opened up more opportunities for her teammates. Iriafen, for one, has two double-doubles over those four games. And as March draws nearer, those same teammates want Watkins to know she’s not in this alone.
“She has us and not all the pressure is on her,” von Oelhoffen said. “I’m sure it can feel like the weight of the world.”
“She doesn’t have to come in every night and try to carry a team,” Iriafen added. “I want it to be like, ‘We want you to dominate, and you’re going to dominate. But if you need somebody, I’m right here.’”
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