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Juju Watkins’ commitment could transform USC basketball

JuJu Watkins, a 2023 USC signee, is one of three finalists for the Gatorade National Girls’ Basketball Player of the Year award. (Jason Armond/Getty Images)

Juju Watkins is staying home.

One of the top recruits in the class of 2023 announced her decision to play college basketball at the University of Southern California on Tuesday. Watkins grew up just 10 minutes from the USC campus, and her family, she said, was the main reason for staying close to home.

Watkins took great care with her decision, which she announced in front of her friends and classmates at Sierra Canyon.

“I didn’t want to rush this process,” Watkins told ESPN. “A lot of people in my class had already committed before me, and I definitely was taking my time. But I want to make sure it was 1,000% where I wanted to go.”

She chose the Trojans over current women’s basketball powerhouses South Carolina and Stanford, ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in the AP Top 25. USC is unranked.

With the Cardinal or the Gamecocks, Watkins would be stepping into a team that is already built for NCAA titles. With USC, she will be a part of the building process. In fact, Watkins will be the central building block for a historic Trojans program that hasn’t been in conversation with elite teams for quite some time.

But Watkins changes that, almost instantly.

“Juju is the best and most decorated player of her class both in the country and internationally, ” USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb said in a press release. “I could talk for days about her skill set: her shot-making ability, creativity to the rim, dominance on the boards, defensive tenacity and her elite court vision.

“But what I am most excited about is that JuJu the human being is joining the USC family. This is a young woman with transcendent talent, but she is also uniquely motivated. She is about things bigger than herself: her family, her team, her community, her city. Juju had the courage to stay home and is driven to bring USC women’s basketball back to prominence. What a monumental day for all of us in the Trojan family.”

USC was a powerhouse in the 1980s, with All-Americans Cheryl Miller, Paula McGee and Rhonda Windham leading the Trojans to an NCAA championship in 1983. They repeated the feat in 1984.

But recent women’s basketball history has belonged to teams like UConn and Baylor, as well as the last two teams competing with USC for Watkins – South Carolina and Stanford. The Trojans haven’t made an NCAA tournament since 2014, and after being a mainstay throughout the ’80s and most of the ’90s, USC has made just three March Madness appearances since 2000.

Watkins is the kind of talent that can transform a program — or in USC’s case, restore it to its former glory.

The 6-foot-1 guard has been called a generational talent after leading Sierra Canyon to a state title in her junior season with 24.8 points, 10.3 rebounds, 3.2 assists, 2.8 steals and 2.0 blocks per game, among other accomplishments, including playing for the United States U-17 and U-16 national teams.

Watkins is a versatile guard, which along with her obvious talent makes her the ideal player to build a team around. And Gottlieb is already working on finding pieces to surround Watkins. Four-star recruit Malia Samuels, a point guard from Seattle, joins Watkins in the class of 2023.

It’s also worth noting that nine players on the ESPN Top 100 recruiting list for 2024 are from California. And with Watkins staying home to play for the Trojans, she could encourage more players to join her in staying home.

NFL to Launch Women’s Professional Flag Football League Ahead of 2028 LA Olympics

Team USA wide receiver Isabella Geraci runs around a Team China defender during a preliminary round flag football game at the 2025 World Games in Chengdu, China.
The 2028 LA Olympics will feature women's flag football for the first time in history. (VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

The NFL is putting women on the gridiron, with commissioner Roger Goodell announcing plans to launch both a men's and women's professional flag football league at Thursday's Leaders in Sport conference in London.

Looking to have both new ventures up and running in "the next couple of years," the NFL's goal is to introduce the leagues prior to the 2028 Summer Games in LA, where flag football will make its Olympic debut.

"The demand is there. We're seeing colleges in the States and universities internationally also that want to make it a part of their program," Goodell said. "If you set that structure up where there's youth leagues, going into high school, into college, and then professional, I think you can develop a system of scale. That's an important infrastructure that we need to create."

Building that infrastructure also feeds the ongoing NFL goal of growing flag football in order to construct a young fanbase for the gridiron sport at-large, with the league investing in a fan pipeline to support the NFL's future.

In part due to past NFL investments, women's flag football has seen significant growth across the US over the last 25 years, with over 30 states now offering competitive opportunities for high school girls — and at least half of those states fielding it as a full-fledged varsity championship sport.

Even the NCAA is getting in on the action, taking initial steps earlier this year to introduce flag football across all three of the governing body's divisions in the near future.

Though the LA Olympics are three years away, flag football is already charging ahead on the international stage, featuring in the 2022 and 2025 World Games — where the same US talent that the NFL is eyeing for its new league snagged a pair of silver medals.

Lauren Betts, UCLA Tops Big Ten Basketball Polls Ahead of 2025/26 NCAA Season

UCLA basketball center Lauren Betts yells in triumph after a play during a 2025 Elite Eight game.
UCLA center Lauren Betts topped two Big Ten preseason player of the year lists this week. (Tyler McFarland/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)

The 2025/26 NCAA basketball season is just around the corner, and the Big Ten is celebrating by shouting out the conference's top predicted performers in both the coaches and media preseason polls on Thursday.

The UCLA Bruins — the Big Ten's singular 2025 Final Four participant — took the top team spot in both surveys, with the Maryland Terrapins trailing just behind as the conference's No. 2 ranked squad.

Rounding out the Top 5 in both polls were the USC Trojans, Michigan Wolverines, and Ohio State Buckeyes.

As for individual athletes, UCLA senior and the reigning Naismith Defensive Player of the Year Lauren Betts clocked in as the polls' unanimous favorite for Big Ten Player of the Year, with the standout center unsurprisingly capturing the top spot in the absence of injured USC star and 2025 Naismith Player of the Year JuJu Watkins.

Also picking up preseason All-Big Ten Team honors in both surveys were fellow UCLA standout Kiki Rice plus four other seniors: Iowa's Hannah Stuelke, Maryland's Yarden Garzon and Kaylene Smikle, and Michigan State's Grace VanSlooten.

A trio of underclassmen also made the cut in both 2025/26 preseason polls, with Ohio State's Jaloni Cambridge — last year's Big Ten Freshman of the Year — joined by a pair of fellow sophomores from archrival Michigan, Olivia Olson and Syla Swords.

The final spot on the All-Big Ten Team lists went to one of the Washington Huskies, with the 18 conference head coaches tapping junior Sayvia Sellers while the media honored senior Elle Ladine.

The 2025/26 NCAA basketball season tips off on November 3rd.

Unrivaled 3×3 to Bring Pro Women’s Basketball Back to Philadelphia with 2026 Tour Stop

A graphic reads "Philly is Unrivaled" on top of the 3x3 basketball league's logo crest.
Unrivaled will take the court in Philadelphia this winter in the city's first women's professional basketball game since 1998. (Unrivaled)

Unrivaled 3×3 Basketball is hitting the road, with the offseason league announcing on Thursday that it will make its first-ever tour stop during the upcoming expanded 2026 season when it takes over Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia on January 30th.

"The energy and dedication of everyone who helped bring this tour stop to life, combined with the passion of Philadelphia's sports fans, made the city the perfect stage for Unrivaled," league president Alex Bazzell said in Thursday's press release.

Featuring four as-yet-unannounced Unrivaled teams in a regular-season doubleheader, the Miami-based league will also pack additional activations and events supporting the competition into its inaugural tour stop.

"Philadelphia is the city of firsts, so it makes perfect sense that the Unrivaled League picked our historical city, with unmatched sports enthusiasts, as its first tour stop," said Philadelphia mayor Cherelle L. Parker.

The upstart league's first foray outside of Miami will also mark Philadelphia's first professional women's basketball games since 1998.

"Advancing women's pro sports in Philly has been a goal we've passionately pursued for years," said comedian Wanda Sykes, an Unrivaled investor and a founding member of the Philadelphia Sisters, a women's sports advocacy group. "Unrivaled, this groundbreaking league, is set to elevate the women's basketball ecosystem as a whole, and we are honored that Philly has been chosen as its first-ever tour stop."

How to purchase tickets to Unrivaled in Philadelphia

Unrivaled isn't revealing the four participating teams until sometime next month, but fans can secure their own spots at the Philadelphia tour stop today.

Tickets for the January 30th doubleheader are currently available for purchase online at Ticketmaster.

NWSL Decision Day Looms Large for 2025 Playoff Hopeful Houston Dash

Houston Dash defender Michelle Alozie huddles with her team during a 2025 NWSL match.
The Houston Dash currently sit three points below the postseason cutoff line in the 2025 NWSL standings. (Brad Smith/ISI Photos/ISI Photos via Getty Images)

With just four regular-season matchdays remaining in the 2025 NWSL season, the clock is quickly ticking down for teams making a late push to rise above the postseason cutoff line on the league table — including the No. 10 Houston Dash.

Currently sitting three points outside of playoff contention, a motivated Houston side will look to make a leap against No. 5 Orlando on Friday night, as the defending champion Pride continues reeling from their recently snapped nine-game NWSL winless streak.

"For us, the next couple of matches are finals," Dash head coach Fabrice Gautrat said after last weekend's 4-0 loss to the No. 2 Washington Spirit. "We have to keep approaching it one game at a time like we've been doing, but we definitely have to have a response against the Orlando Pride."

Notably, Houston enters Friday's matchup with new firepower in the midfield, as teen phenom Chloe Ricketts joins the Dash as a short-term signing from the Spirit before she moves to incoming expansion side Boston Legacy FC in 2026.

"[Ricketts] is very lively, has great energy, great attitude, is eager and ambitious," said Gautrat of Houston's Wednesday signee. "She could play anywhere on our front line, to be honest."

How to watch the Houston Dash vs. Orlando Pride

The No. 10 Houston Dash will host the No. 5 Orlando Pride at 8 PM ET on Friday, with live coverage airing on Prime.

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