USC head schoolmaster Lindsay Gottlieb spotted a stranger drawing near. She concept perhaps she had spilled one thing and he was once going to offer her a heads-up. In lieu, he opposed related their desk and paused.
“Hey, Coach,” he mentioned. “I thought it was you. I’ve gotta ask …”
She waited.
“Is JuJu really 6 foot 2?” he requested.
Gottlieb laughed. She responded — sure, JuJu Watkins is indexed at 6 toes 2 — after joked that it will depend on how a lot of Watkins’ iconic bun is counted. A large secure within the even larger Obese Ten was once an attractive probability for this L.A. sports activities fan. Even in the summertime, he was once willingly expecting the season, which is able to see USC — a group that gave the impression on nationwide networks simply 3 times terminating season ahead of its postseason run to the Elite 8 — on ESPN, FOX, FS1 and NBC 9 occasions ahead of the Obese Ten match.
He thanked Gottlieb, needed her good fortune and went on his approach.
The trade felt oddly ordinary to Gottlieb, simply no longer as the pinnacle schoolmaster of USC, a program she took over in 2021 when it was once a basement dweller within the Pac-12. In lieu, it reminded her of reviews all the way through two seasons as a Cleveland Cavaliers colleague, when insatiable NBA fanatics sought after to crack ailing each and every attainable matchup and era.
“For those of us who have really followed this game for a long time, we’ve known there have been great players before, we’ve known the great stories before, but now to see the rest of the world catch on and pay attention is really cool,” Gottlieb mentioned. “Then you add to it this kind of position I’ve been thrust into, where we’re one of the programs that has one of these star players who is getting a ton of this attention. It’s a great responsibility. It’s a great opportunity.
“None of it is lost on me, that we’re sort of in the apex of this moment.”
Greater than 2,500 miles around the nation, UConn schoolmaster Geno Auriemma can relate. For just about 4 a long time, one of the biggest stars to play games the sport have come during the Huskies’ health club. But the fanfare didn’t fit what he noticed at the males’s facet.
Till now.
In early October, UConn introduced it had bought out its season price ticket applications for the primary date because the 2004-05 season, upcoming Diana Taurasi received a countrywide championship as a senior.
That didn’t occur all the way through the Maya Moore or Breanna Stewart years, or upcoming 111 instantly wins or 4 instantly nationwide titles. No longer till now — Paige Bueckers’ ultimate season in Storrs.
“There are people who have never had an opinion that have an opinion now or they want to know things that they never wanted to know, but now they’re familiar with names and events that in the past they wouldn’t think twice of,” Auriemma mentioned. “The die-hard fans, they can’t wait for the season to start. But the casual fan has tuned in and got a sip of it, and now they’re intrigued.”
That groundswell of consideration for girls’s basketball is plain. Each and every quantity backs it up. Utmost season’s NCAA Match all set viewership data, together with a name recreation that drew 18.9 million audience (besting the boys’s name recreation by way of just about 4 million, one thing maximum fanatics assumed may just by no means occur). Iowa celebrity Caitlin Clark’s uncanny knack for the large era and talent to nail brand 3s drew in thousands and thousands, however the ones fanatics discovered alternative gamers, groups and video games to revel in. Even taking Iowa’s NCAA Match video games out of the equation, terminating hour’s ESPN viewership rose 43 p.c all the way through March Insanity.
Clark’s draw, in addition to Angel Reese’s at LSU, persisted into the WNBA. Indiana Fever attendance and viewership numbers soared; the similar was once true for Reese’s Chicago Sky. Once more, those fresh WNBA fanatics stayed for the alternative immense abilities.
Paige Bueckers’ Huskies bested JuJu Watkins’ Trojans within the Elite 8, however each gamers registered 20-point double-doubles. (Steph Chambers / Getty Photographs)
Stars propel sports activities and leagues. They entice fickle eyewitnesses and convert them to die-hards. Then Clark and Reese departed for the WNBA, there’s incorrect letdown for varsity basketball stars serving to elevate the game’s weight, however consideration will likely be desirous about two.
Anchoring two coasts, two meetings and two nationwide name contenders are USC’s Watkins and UConn’s Bueckers. They’re enjoying at techniques which are iconic in their very own tactics and recognizable international. They’re each elite — probably generational — and feature the ball of their fingers greater than nearly any individual else.
Watkins is the reigning Freshman of the While making an attempt to resurrect the Trojans, who haven’t been related in her lifetime. She’s the homeland child who grew to become out stars like Kevin Hart, Saweetie, LeBron James and John Wall at terminating season’s house video games. The smoothness to her recreation and easy attribute produce it look like she hasn’t ever pressed for time at the ground, whether or not she’s pulling up from 3 or attacking the basket (or hitting a shot any place in between).
Kevin Hart was once in attendance to look JuJu Watkins and the USC Girls’s Basketball group #ncaaw #fighton pic.twitter.com/31PLjQDknN
— WNBA Were given Recreation (@wnbagotgame) December 20, 2023
Bueckers, who received nationwide Participant of the While as a freshman 4 years in the past, is in her ultimate season at UConn. Even with its vaunted legacy, few highschool gamers had been extra heralded entering Storrs than she was once. And but, in her 5th hour, a countrywide championship — of which UConn has received 11 — has eluded Bueckers. She’s a rangy secure with enough quantity savvy inside of that even if she performed the 4 terminating season, she was once nonetheless named an All-American. A participant so assured that she trademarked her nickname, “Paige Buckets,” ahead of her sophomore season.
Watkins’ and Bueckers’ play games, storylines and superstar, in addition to USC and UConn’s December assembly (a rematch of terminating season’s Elite 8) are causes community, together with fresh fanatics, will music in for girls’s hoops this season.
However not like gamers ahead of them with those self same attributes, they’re competing at a date of exceptional transformation.
As a result of an investigation that revealed grievous disparities in NCAA males’s and girls’s basketball, the NCAA was once pressured to speculate extra within the ladies’s NCAA Match. As a result of rising consideration, ESPN — the ladies’s NCAA Match media spouse — anted up terminating hour and paid large cash for the media rights to broadcast the development. As a result of NIL, gamers corresponding to Bueckers and Watkins are recognizable out of doors of ladies’s basketball circles, partnering with main firms like Nike and Gatorade. Watkins was once noticed on the 2024 Cannes Lions Competition, threw out the primary tone at a June Los Angeles Dodgers recreation and received the ESPY for Highest Leap forward Athlete. Bueckers attended the U.S. Seen, the place Frances Tiafoe and Coco Gauff shouted her out, sat entrance row at Untouched York Model Year and was once featured at the JumboTron at a Los Angeles Rams recreation.
“There’s no boundaries on us, and because of that, you’re seeing talent, you’re seeing coaching, you’re seeing fan support, you’re seeing viewership — you’re seeing all of those things,” South Carolina schoolmaster Crack of dawn Staley mentioned. “This is probably the biggest movement in our game in its history, and it couldn’t happen at a more perfect time. … There are so many people tuned in; we met the moment.”
To proceed assembly that era, ladies’s basketball wishes the then flow of stars. It wishes groups with compelling storylines (Staley’s Gamecocks are an ideal instance as reigning champs coming again to copy upcoming an undefeated season), nevertheless it additionally wishes folks like Watkins and Bueckers, whose tales and trips this season will likely be as compelling as their play games at the ground.
“It’s great that we have them because it would be a shame to follow up the star power of last year and then not be able to add to it this season,” Auriemma mentioned. “We need to showcase these guys and these teams, and we need to play well. We need to give all these new people that are going to be watching something to be excited about so they want to come back.”
If Bueckers and Watkins do what their coaches consider, after fresh fanatics will undoubtedly have causes to store tuning in and discovering their then favourite gamers as soon as Bueckers and Watkins advance directly to the professionals.
Auriemma and Gottlieb, who’ve been round this recreation for many years, know this era isn’t simply other; it’s lengthy late. What comes then (or, in point of fact, who comes then) will likely be what pushes the game ahead.
(Representation: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; Manage footage of Paige Bueckers and JuJu Watkins: G Fiume / Getty Photographs, Brian Rothmuller / Icon Sportswire by way of Getty Photographs)
