USC women’s basketball continues to earn attention, including LeBron James’, in win over UC Riverside – Daily News

LOS ANGELES — If you’re a real hooper, Lakers assistant coach Phil Handy said, you know JuJu Watkins.

Safe to say LeBron James, by most definitions, fits the mold of a real hooper. And he’s known Watkins at least since the days she dominated at Sierra Canyon, the two exchanging a dap after the Chosen-1 Invitational at Crypto.com Arena in Watkins’ junior year, Watkins and Bronny James both on a concurrent journey to USC.

“You hear about athletes like this every blue moon, right?” Handy told the Southern California News Group, a trainer who has worked with Watkins since her ninth-grade year. “They don’t come along very often.”

So after the USC men’s basketball team lost to Long Beach State, 84-79, a disappointing end to a triumphant Bronny debut, LeBron remained courtside for much of the first half to watch Watkins and the women’s team – dominating UC Riverside in an 85-53 win in a doubleheader immediately after the win.

“It’s unbelievable – like, I get chills thinking about, what my vision was in coming here,” Coach Lindsay Gottlieb said. “And obviously, I never envisioned, like, all the characters and the things that were at play today. But you envisioned doing something special.”

“Really, to have a large portion of that crowd that maybe has never seen us play,” Gottlieb continued later, “we are changing a culture here.”

A rapid change too, from a program flying far below the national radar extending into Gottlieb’s first year that now has become a national power with the recruitment of hometown kid Watkins, the girl from Watts who is helping re-establish Los Angeles as an epicenter for women’s basketball. And as she’s done in every game across an undefeated 8-0 start, Watkins put on a show for the crowd of close to 10,000 that remained after the men’s game – dropping an easy 27 points on 10-of-16 shooting in an 85-53 win.

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