JuJu Watkins and star-studded USC among NCAA title favorites

USC guard JuJu Watkins reacts after scoring against Kansas during the NCAA tournament in March.

By Benjamin Royer

Nov. 4, 2024 4:30 AM PT

When Cheryl Miller first touched the hardwood as a Trojan, she powered the women of Troy to a national championship.

Miller — a sophomore in 1983-84 — returned with everything to prove after winning it all. Expectations soared and fans flocked to the Sports Arena to watch the Trojans.

Enter sophomore guard JuJu Watkins and the USC women’s basketball squad of 2024-25. Watkins couldn’t get past the Elite Eight in Year 1, but expectations, like they were in 1983, are sky-high.

“We haven’t shied away from the word expectations all summer,” said USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb, entering her fourth season in charge of the Trojans. “I’m not trying to pretend that they’re not there. It’s a matter of using it as the standard and saying this is where we want to be, but not letting that put the weight of the world on our shoulders every day or steal our joy every day.”

Big Ten media and coaches picked the Trojans to win the conference during their first campaign out of the Pac-12. Watkins — who averaged 27.1 points per game while taking 34.6% of the team’s shots — is unanimously heralded as the Big Ten preseason player of the year. And USC begins the year ranked No. 3 in the Associated Press Top 25, behind South Carolina and Connecticut.

Coming off a 29-6 record and their first Elite Eight appearance since 1994, the Trojans enter the season with a rare mix: returning veterans, seven freshmen, a bona fide star in Watkins and two graduate transfer stalwarts of the Pac-12’s past: former Stanford forward Kiki Iriafen and Oregon State guard Talia von Oelhoffen.

Iriafen, the reigning Katrina McClain Award winner — which honors the top power forward in the nation — averaged a double-double (19.4 points and 11.0 rebounds) last season. Von Oelhoffen, on the other hand, was an All-Pac-12 point guard who led Oregon State in assists with 5.0 per game — a mark that would have led USC.

Kiki Iriafen celebrates during Stanford's win over Iowa State in the NCAA tournament in March.

“I spent most of my time here literally watching film on how to stop [Iriafen and von Oelhoffen],” Gottlieb said about recruiting the graduate transfer duo. “Now, it’s an unbelievable feeling.”

For Iriafen, an AP preseason All-American alongside Watkins, playing at Galen Center is a return home. She’s a Los Angeles native, having played high school basketball at Harvard-Westlake.

“Being home is the greatest gift I could ask for,” said Iriafen, who graduated from Stanford with a design engineering degree. “I’m the oldest child, so being able to be around my siblings, my parents, it’s super special for me. Everyone who has helped me get to this point — my high school coaches, my trainers and my family — can now finally see me shine on the college stage.”

Senior center Rayah Marshall — one of two returning starters from last year — joins Watkins, Iriafen and von Oelhoffen on the Naismith Women’s Player of the Year watch list. All four averaged double-digit points last season.

Outside of Marshall and Watkins, however, the Trojans return just slightly over a tenth of their minutes from last year, almost all of which came off the bench.

The entrance of offensive options playing big minutes through USC’s former Pac-12 foes allows Watkins — who passed Miller for the program record of most 30-point games in a season — to improve as a facilitator instead of being relied upon as the go-to scorer at all times, Gottlieb said.

“[Her] game continues to evolve,” Gottlieb said of Watkins. “She has it all. We never want to stifle her ability to be a bucket-getter — nobody is better at that than her — but she really has a complete game. As her skill set and her pace have evolved, I just want her to make the right play again and again.”

Gottlieb added that some of the seven freshmen are set for immediate playing time when USC opens its campaign in Paris against No. 20 Mississippi on Monday morning — although she declined to specify who.

USC brought in one of the top freshman classes in the nation, the only program featuring three 2024 McDonald’s All-Americans: guards Kayleigh Heckel, Avery Howell and Kennedy Smith.

Heckel, a 5-foot-9 point guard, said teammates such as von Oelhoffen and Watkins are helping her adjust to the pace and intricacies of college basketball. The Port Chester, N.Y., native, whose teammates have coined her “K-9,” added she’s counting down the minutes until the tip-off against the Rebels.

“We’ve been beating up on each other a lot,” she said. “We’re excited to see some new faces.”