LAS VEGAS — As USC players grouped for a pregame meal hours before a gritty scrap with UCLA Friday night, freshman JuJu Watkins walked in and delivered a pregame announcement.
“I got something I wanted to show you guys in the next room,” she said, according to teammate Rayah Marshall.
Before they headed to Vegas for the Pac-12 women’s tournament, Marshall told Watkins: Imagine if we all bought matching shoes. The program’s shoe game, evidently, had been one of slim few points of dissatisfaction across a 25-5 regular season; they wore the same pair of white USC trainers. Not the biggest fans. So when the team ambled towards the treasure in the next room, they found pairs of gold Nike Romaleos waiting for them — plus a set of new white Nikes for the coaching staff — courtesy of one Judea Watkins.
“I’m like, ‘Ju, you’re lit for that,’” Marshall grinned, after Saturday’s practice at MGM Grand Garden Arena.
As she finished the story, a group of USC players, lingering to get up post-practice shots, erupted and started streaking across the hardwood in glee. Unclear what happened. Marshall didn’t see, either.
“Speaking of lit,’” Marshall laughed, on cue.
Coach Lindsay Gottlieb’s message to her team, ever since the trip to Vegas, has been simple: Have joy. Levity. They earned this. And the joy is rampant, even after a grueling 80-70 double-overtime win over UCLA Friday night that left Marshall with a puffy eye and Watkins with a sprained left ankle. With that joy, too, comes a sense of urgency — an opportunity in front of them, suddenly, for a group that’s in the final stages of a radical three-year transformation to leave the very final imprint on a legendary conference.
“I always just remember, what it’s like to be at the bottom,” junior Marshall said Saturday, reflecting on a freshman year going 12-16 in Gottlieb’s first year at USC. “So now, to be a top team and pose a threat to other teams, it’s a nice…
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