University of Southern California (USC) Trojans and their star guard Juju Watkins traveled to West Lafayette to take on the Purdue University Boilermakers Jan. 22.
After a stop in Bloomington to play the Hoosiers on Jan. 19, the ‘best player in women’s college basketball’ and the Trojans concluded their long road trip east with a contest against Purdue.
A crowd of 7,543 packed Mackey Arena to get a glimpse of the ‘next big thing in women’s basketball.
Purdue and the team from Los Angeles inhabit two very different corners of the college basketball landscape. The Trojans came into the game ranked No. 4 in the country. The one-loss team was favored to win the National Championship in April.
The home team entered having lost six straight games by at least 18 points. Despite this, it was Purdue who came out strong early.
Purdue’s Ella Collier (Danville) hit a jumper to start the score 30 seconds into the contest. The Boilers would lead 14-7 with under four minutes to go in the first quarter.
At the end of the opening period the gold and black were on top of the 17-1 Trojans by a score of 16-15.
Purdue coach Katie Gearlds commented in her post-game press conference:
“I wanted to petition the Big Ten to stop the game after the first quarter.”
For good reason. It was all USC after the first ten minutes. The visitors went on a 31-2 run in the second quarter to break the game wide open.
Many of the students, who made up the large crowd gathered to watch Watkins up close began to leave at the end of the third quarter with Purdue down 65-28.
USC cruised across the finish line with a 79-37 victory over Purdue.
Watkins had a mediocre game with 16 points on 6-15 shooting. However, the moment didn’t require her to be at her best.
After the game, Gearlds was positive about her team. She was asked if it was hard to see progress from her group after losing seven straight games by a wide margin.
“To everybody else it doesn’t look like we’ve gotten better, but inside our locker room we truly, honestly believe it [we have improved],” Gearlds said.
Purdue is next in action Jan. 27 at 13-5 Illinois.
Austin Taylor is the executive director of The City League. Contact him at ataylor@thecityleague.org. For more sports coverage from the Indianapolis Recorder, click here.
