The Pac-12 made the choice everyone knew was coming.
Freshman guard JuJu Watkins — after winning 14 out of 17 Pac-12 Freshman of the Week awards — was officially announced as the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year, the sixth USC women’s basketball player to win the award.
USC’s phenom closed out the regular season averaging 27.8 points per game, nearly 15 points more than her closest teammate. She seemed to play even better in Pac-12 play — a conference with six teams in the AP Top 25 — totaling 28.3 points per game against conference foes.
Watkins set multiple USC records this season as a freshman, setting the single-game scoring record with her 51-point performance at Stanford and recording 12 30-point performances to break Cheryl Miller’s single-season record.
The L.A. native also helped the Trojans reach the No. 5 spot in the AP poll to close out the regular season, their highest close to a season since 1994.
Despite her impressive season, Watkins did not win Pac-12 Player of the Year. Stanford’s senior forward Cameron Brink claimed that honor instead; she also won her third Defensive Player of the Year award. While it was Watkins who dominated the freshman weekly awards, Brink secured five Pac-12 Player of the Week awards this season, more than any other player. Watkins made waves at that level as well, securing three weekly recognitions.
On top of racking up the freshman awards, Watkins was also one of 15 named to the All-Pac-12 team, along with her teammate, graduate guard McKenzie Forbes.
Forbes was the Trojans’ second-leading scorer, putting up 13.1 points per game. She nearly notched a 2-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio, recording a team-high 95 assists to 55 giveaways. Even though Watkins averaged more minutes, Forbes totaled the most time on the court by playing in all of USC’s 28 regular-season games.
When Watkins has fouled out — which she only did twice this season — or had an off-shooting night, the Trojans have turned to Forbes to pick up the slack.
Along with Forbes, USC relied heavily on junior center Rayah Marshall, who earned All-Pac-12 Honorable Mention, meaning she received at least one vote to be named to the all-conference team. Both Watkins and Marshall were listed as honorable mentions for the conference All-Defensive team as well. Despite a slight statistical regression from last season, Marshall still ended up averaging a double-double with her 10.2 points and 10.0 rebounds per game.
Marshall had a strong end to the season, putting up 41 points and bringing down 26 rebounds across her last two games. The center had 10 double-doubles on the season, with half of them coming in the last eight games of the season.
The job’s not finished for the award-winning Trojans, though. Watkins, Forbes and Marshall travel to Las Vegas this week for the Pac-12 tournament, where they come in as the No. 2 seed behind Stanford.
USC’s first game of the tournament will come against the winner of Arizona — a team that took the Trojans to double overtime this past weekend — and Washington — a team that handed USC one of its five losses earlier this season.
Whoever the Trojans face off against, tipoff will take place at 6 p.m. at MGM Grand Garden Arena.