No. 7 USC at No. 4 UConn: What’s at stake in the showdown between JuJu Watkins and Paige Bueckers

Southern Cal head coach Lindsay Gottlieb met her team in the locker room. Although the Trojans fell one win shy of their first Final Four since 1986, Gottlieb’s message to the group that put USC back on the national stage was positive. Such an explosion was no easy task, she told them last April.

“The way the country is going to view USC women’s basketball is really different than it was four months ago,” Gottlieb said after an 80-73 loss to Connecticut in the Portland 3 Region final. “This is a powerful thing for the group here.”

USC (10-1) and UConn (10-1), led by National Player of the Year contenders JuJu Watkins and Paige Bueckers, will play in an Elite Eight rematch on Saturday (Fox, 8 p.m. ET). meet again in acute circumstances. While there’s no championship on the line (at least not yet), it will contribute significantly to NCAA tournament seeding. And for USC, it will serve as a barometer of how far its program has progressed since returning to the scene that has long dominated UConn.

The No. 7 Trojans, unlike this time a year ago, are national championship contenders, powered by second-generation star Watkins and a series of transfers that have compared them to Marvel’s Avengers. They rank fourth in net rating, driven by the third-best defensive performance (67.1). Few teams are better at protecting the rim or sharing the ball. Their only loss came against defensive threat Notre Dame, a devastating blow to their home stadium that they can attribute to a lack of chemistry in the early going.

As USC tread water on the West Coast over the last three decades, UConn swam marathons around everyone. The country views the Huskies as perennial title contenders who should do nothing but win the final trophy in April. A 14-year Final Four streak and 11 national championships make this a program. However, they haven’t won since 2016, and in Storrs, Connecticut, that was ages and days ago.

Powered by the experienced Bueckers, the No. 4 Huskies are once again among the title favorites as long as their group of top recruits stays healthy. That was a tough performance. In a continuation of the team’s health struggles over the past five seasons, shooting guard Azzi Fudd missed two games – including the lone loss to Notre Dame – because of a knee sprain. She’s heading to the USC matchup any day now.

They are the best shooting team in Division I (51.6% overall, 60.6% from beyond the arc) and second-best in points per game (1.03), but they have fallen slightly behind defensively. However, the Huskies faced slightly tougher opponents than USC and picked up wins against ranked teams North Carolina, Ole Miss and Louisville as well as previously ranked Iowa State.

The matchup features four of the five No. 1 recruits still in college: forward Sarah Strong (UConn ’24), Watkins (USC ’23), Fudd (UConn ’21) and Bueckers (UConn ’20). Center Lauren Betts (Stanford ’22) is ranked No. 1 at UCLA.

Final Four preview?

It is the second preseason collegiate meeting between AP All-America guards Bueckers and Watkins. It could be their last unless they meet again in the NCAA Tournament. UConn sits third and USC seventh in the NET rankings, the primary metric for the NCAA tournament basketball selection committee. According to ESPN’s Bracketology projections released Tuesday, UConn is the No. 2 seed in Region 4 Spokane with Texas and USC is the No. 3 seed in Region 1 Spokane with UCLA. They would meet in the Final Four.

Bueckers has said it is her final year in Connecticut before becoming the projected No. 1 overall pick in the WNBA Draft. Watkins, who talent evaluators say is WNBA ready, won’t be age eligible until 2027.

The two finished the Elite Eight game with comparable stats, although Bueckers was more efficient with her 28 points (11 of 23, 3 of 6, 3). Watkins posted a game-high score of 29 (9 of 25, 2 of 6, 3). UConn’s Aaliyah Edwards and USC’s McKenzie Forbes, who each scored 24 points in the matchup, were drafted into the WNBA.

Race for Player of the Year

The duel will also serve as the first benchmark for the discussion about the national player of the year. Notre Dame sophomore Hannah Hidalgo has an early lead thanks to her two-pronged performances in the games against Bueckers and Watkins. By Sunday, all three will have played each other to set the non-conference baseline for decision-makers.

Bueckers was the first freshman to win the Major National Player of the Year award, securing Wooden, Naismith, AP and USBWA honors in 2021. She is averaging 20.6 points this season on career-best efficiency (65.9 EFG%). The rest of her per-game stats are down slightly as she has more elite help around her than she has since her award-winning Final Four appearance.

Watkins, who set the scoring record as a freshman, is averaging a third-best 24.7 points with an effective field goal percentage of 51.5%. Their performance has also declined slightly as the roster has increased, resulting in USC achieving its best AP ranking since 1986 and by far its most relevant in the last four decades.

UConn’s Fudd (10 ppg, 50 FG% in 19.2 mpg/five games) and USC transfers Kiki Iriafen (18.7 ppg, 9.2 rpg) and Talia von Oelhoffen (3.5 apg, 2.1 spg ) are also on the Wooden Award Preseason Top 50 list. Strong, UConn’s second-leading scorer and 3-pointer, is expected to make her midseason roster debut in January.