LOS ANGELES — She and Cheryl Miller are similar in many ways, JuJu Watkins expressed after USC’s win over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Saturday, two standard-bearers of different USC eras who burned with a competitive fire like few of their peers.
But their expressiveness, Miller noted, is different. When she burst to the cup for an and-one, back in her 1980s playing days? Everyone knew it was an and-one. Everyone from the courtside fans to the distant concession workers. Watkins, Miller described, moves different, effortlessly precise as a skilled pickpocket.
“She,” Miller told the Southern California News Group in late February, “is like that silent killer.”
And Watkins snapped Miller’s single-season program scoring record as quiet as ever, a simple backdoor layup early in the first quarter of USC’s 87-55 win Saturday. A packed-out crowd at Galen, featuring Miller sitting in the lower basin — a row behind athletic director Jen Cohen and Klutch Sports CEO Rich Paul — barely budged, unaware of the milestone. When the feat was mentioned to Watkins postgame, she was gracious but rather unexpressive.
“Oh, I wasn’t even aware that happened,” Watkins said, a freshman who’s regularly made history seem as common as any old Tuesday.
A couple minutes later, another feat was pointed out to Watkins, an infinitely miniscule one in comparison — she’d turned the ball over just once against Corpus-Christi, on the first possession of the game.
She gasped. Genuinely proud.
“That’s crazy,” she smiled. “That’s — good news.”
This was a more measured Watkins, in her first foray into March Saturday afternoon, leading USC to an easy win in a workmanlike 23-point performance with little wasted effort and few forced possessions. A silent killer. Head coach Lindsay Gottlieb anticipated in the week leading up that Corpus-Christi could throw something defensively at USC they hadn’t seen in months, after a gauntlet of familiar scouts in…
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