Autumn is here. It’s finally getting colder, and the leaves are changing colors. Or at least that’s what I hear from my mom back in Maryland anyway. And with that comes what might be my favorite sport to watch: college basketball.

Which means we’re one step closer to March Madness, where I did, in fact, win the Daily Trojan men’s basketball pool last year (let’s not mention my last-place finish in the women’s pool). And I’m going to a school where the expectations are higher than they’ve ever been for both the men’s and women’s teams.

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After months of writing about USC football, I can finally take a breath and move on to a program that won’t let its expectations go to its head. While the men’s basketball team is good, and I think there are reasons to be excited about them, the USC women’s team is going to blow them out of the water.

Let’s start right at the head of the snake: Freshman guard JuJu Watkins. She’s the No. 1 recruit in the nation, and her resume is so long I could spend the rest of the article just listing it off. But know one thing: She’s a proven winner. Watkins led her high school team to a 61-3 record over her last two seasons while averaging an absurd 27.5 points, 13.7 rebounds and 3.6 assists her senior season.

She already has several MVPs and gold medals under her belt while competing for the National Team. Watkins is going to give the Trojans a much-needed offensive boost.

The Trojans had just one player average more than 15 points per game last season, and three of their top four scorers are no longer on this team. This is also a USC team that averaged just 64.2 points per game last season — second to last in the Pac-12 and 195th in the country.

Watkins can help lead the offensive onslaught and lead this team to heights it hasn’t seen since the 1990s. Going back to that scoring, part of what made USC so impressive was its defensive dominance. The Trojans had the 15th-best defense in the entire country, allowing just 55.1 points per game.

Head Coach Lindsay Gottlieb runs a suffocating defensive system and gets all her players to buy in. From my experience watching their practices last year, it’s clear Gottlieb isn’t afraid to hold her players accountable. She expects nothing but the best effort from her players, and the results have shown.

Gottlieb inherited a team that finished 11-12 the previous season and hadn’t had a winning record in the Pac-12 since the 2013-14 season. She completely turned the team around as the Trojans finished with 21 wins.

Gottlieb got to work in the offseason, though, and brought in four graduate transfers — three from the Ivy League. Two of them — graduate guard Kayla Padilla and graduate forward Kaitlyn Davis — are ranked in the 24/7 Sports’ top 35 transfers.

And let’s not forget about the dominant force that is junior forward Rayah Marshall. Marshall was a defensive force last season, finishing on the All-Pac-12 team and the All-Pac-12 Defensive team. She averaged a double-double last season and has a block in 51 consecutive games.

This team has an identity, they have a leader and they have a strong coach to put it all together. USC’s first two games won’t be easy by any means: playing on the national stage against an Ohio State team that went to the Elite Eight last year and then hosting a Florida Gulf Coast team that also got a tournament win a year ago.

But after that, the Trojans will only play one team that made the NCAA tournament last season across their next 11 games. They’ll have the opportunity to improve on their record yet again. With the Pac-12 somewhat weaker than in years past, they have a shot to return to prominence.

Maybe I’m shooting too high, and Watkins will take time to adjust to the college game. But Gottlieb has won a lot more with less talent before; she’ll find a way to get it done. I can’t wait for the opening tipoff Monday, where USC will prove to everyone on the national stage what I already know. They’re good, and they’re primed to make a run. One thing’s for sure, though: USC is definitely a basketball school now.

Stefano Fendrich is a junior writing about his opinions on some of USC sports’ biggest debates in his column, “The Great Debate,” which runs every other Friday. He is also a sports editor at the Daily Trojan.