Live at The JuJu Watkins Show — Scott Rueck talks Oregon State

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On a late Sunday night, ahead of a winter storm, 7,356 crowded into the arena to cheer on, to a certain extent, the home team. But the loudest cheers were for Watkins all night, and the evidence of her national following was unmistakable — not just the shirts, but the dozens of young girls wearing the JuJu Buns everywhere you looked.

“When you think big picture, it really is something,” USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb told me after the game, a 92-42 rout of Rutgers. “…JuJu’s really had a cultural impact. The girls and boys that come to the game, the way that it’s impacted our program — it’s hard to impact winning like this, right? She’s winning and getting other players to come… little girls can see them, and they can wear the bun, and they can aspire to be like these women. I think that’s really, really important.”

I’ve often been asked by newcomers to this space what makes Caitlin Clark unique, and my answer has often been that she is merely the first through the larger, more well-marked doorway, a superstar reflecting the growth of the game, not the sum total of that growth. But ultimately, what we needed to see was proof of that, and I’ve long believed we would see that proof in the audiences for Paige Bueckers and Watkins this season.

We saw what television viewership looked like for those two, together, on Dec. 21, when USC-UConn drew 2.2 million pairs of eyes on average, peaking at 3.76 million. Those simply weren’t realistic numbers in the pre-Caitlin era for regular season college basketball. But that is the second-best number Fox Sports has ever gotten for a women’s college basketball game, trailing only Clark’s regular-season finale last season at Iowa.

Still, in some ways Sunday night felt like an even better indicator of where the sport is headed. Bueckers, after all, is a contemporary of Clark, and UConn, in the pre-Caitlin era, led the way in television audience. Moreover, Clark’s race is frequently cited as a key factor in her popularity, the often-unsaid subtext being that once Clark moved to the WNBA, star Black players will not move the needle in the same way. Bueckers, being a huge draw and white, is discussed in similar terms.

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So it absolutely feels like progress that in a game at Rutgers where Watkins was the visitor, her sophomore year, she drew approximately four times as many paying customers to the RAC as Clark did her sophomore year, when she played in front of a crowd of 1,852. That’s not because there is some zero-sum game between the popularity of Clark and Watkins, but rather, it serves as a direct refutation of the idea that Clark is a one-off for any reason whatsoever.

It also helped Clark that she had a pair of runs to the national title game, and this USC team sure is equipped to do the same. Gottlieb is one of the great minds in coaching today, and took her Cal team to the Final Four a decade ago. Watkins is surrounded by elite talent in transfers like Kiki Iriafen and Talia von Oelhoffen, while the lanky 6’1 Kennedy Smith is simultaneously listed as a guard by the Trojans, wreaking havoc in the passing lanes, while serving as the team’s best on-ball defender.

“So talented,” Maryland head coach Brenda Frese told me Tuesday when I asked about Smith. “When you talk about just a freshman, and you can see, as she’s gotten back in the lineup, just what she’s been able to do to elevate that team from a defensive end. Her length, her athleticism, and another massive piece on the perimeter.”

Frese has the unenviable task of welcoming USC to College Park Wednesday night, a game featuring two top-ten teams, with the Terrapins entering the game undefeated. (We have the great Rob Knox there to cover it for The Next. I am jealous I am missing this one in person.) A sellout crowd is expected. Ahead of even Clark’s schedule, that’s what JuJu Watkins is bringing everywhere she plays.

“It does feel like the new normal, because you’re consistently seeing it in these arenas, whether you are at home or go on the road,” Frese said. “Fans are more educated. They’re watching social media and television, the national exposure definitely has more eyes on it. I think it’s an exciting time to be in our game. As someone who came into this game with empty arenas to where it is now, It’s very rewarding and satisfying to see these young women being able to have these moments.”

Most of that crowd stuck around long after the outcome had been decided in Piscataway on Sunday night, only emptying out of the arena once Watkins, who never stopped playing at full speed, finished a transition opportunity with her otherworldly polish at the rim and forced a timeout, USC ahead, 84-35, 3:48 to play.

“I just I think that the impact is so far beyond just the scoreboard, and that will never be lost on me,” Scarsdale’s own Gottlieb said. “It’s really cool to be close to my hometown, and all these people want to come to see JuJu and come to see her teammates. It’s really cool.”

Even after it was over, plenty of people stuck around, and as I drove off into the cold New Jersey night, I spotted dozens of young JuJu Watkins fans standing near the USC bus in frigid temperatures, hoping for one last glimpse of their hero.

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Order ‘Becoming Caitlin Clark’ and save 30%

Howard Megdal, founder and editor of The Next and The IX, just announced his latest book. It captures both the historic nature of Caitlin Clark’s rise along with the critical context, over the previous century, that helped make it possible — interviews with Clark, Lisa Bluder, C. Vivian Stringer, Jan Jensen, Molly Kazmer and so many others were vital to the process.

If you enjoy his coverage of women’s basketball every Wednesday at The IX, you will love “Becoming Caitlin Clark: The Unknown Origin Story of a Modern Basketball Superstar.” Click the link below to order and enter MEGDAL30 at checkout.

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This week in women’s basketball

Sisters, Archbishop Carroll-style.

Noa Dalzell on WNBA officiating, soup-to-nuts.

Jonathan Tannenwald on UConn’s Philly visit.

Every word of this on Kiyomi McMiller.

Mailien Rolf is a freshman to know, PJ Brown says.

And close to home: Darby Chharbia is off to Bowdoin, and this Cherry Hill native couldn’t be prouder of her.

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Five at The IX: Scott Rueck, Oregon State

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Mondays: Soccer

By: Annie Peterson, @AnnieMPeterson, AP Women’s Soccer

Tuesdays: Tennis

By: Joey Dillon, @JoeyDillon, Freelance Tennis Writer

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By: Howard Megdal, @HowardMegdal, The Next

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