Talking about JuJu Watkins and USC before the Buckeyes take the short trip south.
On Saturday, No. 8 Ohio State women’s basketball plays its second game on an away trip full of tough opponents and even worse traffic. After the Buckeyes lost to the No. 1 UCLA Bruins 65-52, despite tying the last undefeated team with 9:26 remaining in the game, there’s more pressure than before to take a positive result back to Ohio.
Enter the No. 7 USC Trojans, a side led by superstar sophomore JuJu Watkins and a team set up for success under head coach Lindsay Gottlieb. Before the Buckeyes and Trojans play for the second time in two seasons, Land-Grant Holy Land reached out to Fight On 247, a site dedicated to covering the Trojans, and specifically women’s basketball beat writer, Ahmad Akkaoui.
Akkaoui spent time talking about not only Watkins but the impact of transfer Kiki Iriafen, how USC is so successful blocking shots and more. Fight On 247 is up next in the Visiting Locker Room.
Land-Grant Holy Land: Ohio State faced JuJu Watkins in her first NCAA game, falling to the Trojans with Watkins scoring 33 points despite getting into foul trouble. How has Watkins grown in her first season and a half?
Fight On: Watkins has grown immensely since then. She went through a ton of ups and downs as many freshmen go through on top of the pressure of being the best person on the team that wasn’t as good as the end-result showed them to be.
She is smarter, faster, and more clever with her game this season in comparison to last year. To be able to take her team to the Elite Eight as a freshman is impressive, so this team’s expectation is already another trip to the Sweet Sixteen, at the very least.
LGHL: Kiki Iriafen really put USC into another stratosphere talent-wise. The forward is known for shooting midrange jumpers and stretching out defenses, but what else does she do for the Trojans on the court?
FO: Everyone sees what she does offensively, but she’s a great defender as well. Though she’s not a shot blocker like Rayah Marshall, she can protect the rim and she can guard 1-5. She moves her feet really well to stay in front of defenders.
On top of her defense, she’s also a pest on the offensive board. She has as many defensive rebounds as she does offensive rebounds this season.
LGHL: USC leads the country in blocks per game, getting around seven per game. How do the Trojans track so well on defense? Is it purely size mismatches or is there more to it than that?
FO: The easiest way to describe it is just ball awareness. The team has size advantage throughout the team, and that is one factor, but the players just know where the ball is at all times and get it, whether that’s with blocking shots or poking it away for steals. They’ve blocked at least three shots in every game this season. That’s pretty impressive.
LGHL: Losing to Notre Dame was tough, but the Fighting Irish are a team that could be in the Final Four and beyond this postseason. The loss to Iowa was much more of a shock. What happened in that game against the Hawkeyes? What weaknesses did Iowa exploit?
FO: 14,998 fans were in an arena for the game before retiring the jersey of one of the best women’s players ever. It was loud. It was rowdy. It was a hard game to play. I was surprised by how bad USC started the game (1-of-21 shooting), but I wasn’t surprised that it was able to make it competitive and take the lead before halftime.
I think the biggest factor was the noise, but the other factor was forcing bad shots. Iowa kept its composure in the fourth quarter and closed out the game, and it exposed USC’s inability to stay out of foul trouble at times.