Exclusive | JuJu Watkins to team up with Jazzy Davidson and Saniyah Hall to create USC super team: Really loaded
It sounds like a fantasy draft gone haywire.Combine the nation’s top player with its top returning freshman and top incoming high school recruit and see who can stop you.That’s the reality that USC women’s basketball coach Lindsay Gottlieb has forged for her team heading into summer workouts.Only a month after cross-town rival UCLA won the national title, the Trojans are preparing to unveil what could be considered their own super team led by JuJu Watkins, Jazzy Davidson and Saniyah Hall.“In terms of singular individual players, this team is really loaded,” Gottlieb told the California Post on Monday in an exclusive interview, “but you don’t get points for that; you’ve got to play together on the floor.So we’ll only be a super team if we play super together.
That’s the goal and that’s what we’re looking forward to doing.”A generational superstar, Watkins is on the verge of being fully cleared to return from the devastating knee injury that wiped out last season.Davidson is primed to build on a debut college season in which she led her team in scoring.
Hall could emerge as another primary option after ranking as the nation’s top recruit in 2026.Realizing what she already had to work with, Gottlieb set about complementing what might be the nation’s top threesome with two additions through the transfer portal, with one more player possibly to come.“It’s not that we didn’t think we needed to improve,” said Gottlieb, whose team was eliminated by top-seeded South Carolina in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, “but we also know that improvement for us this year looked different than the teams that are trying to replace a roster or rebuild or get their leading scorer.”With upgraded post play a priority, the Trojans snagged Pania Davis, a 6-foot-6 center from Florida State who combines impressive size and mobility.Davis could play beside – or alongside – Sara Okeke, a five-star freshman from Spain who possesses star upsi...