For women’s basketball, greatness is no longer a fading memory.

Freshman guard JuJu Watkins guided the No. 1-seeded Trojans (27-5, 13-5 Pac-12) with 23 points, five rebounds and four blocks to an 87-55 destruction of No. 16-seeded Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (23-9, 14-4 Southland Conference) in the first round of the NCAA Tournament Saturday afternoon at Galen Center. Now with 833 points, Watkins has surpassed Cheryl Miller for the USC single-season scoring record. 

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This is only Watkins’ first season in college and with Saturday’s victory, she’s already taken the Trojans to the second round of the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2006. Before that, Watkins led USC to its most wins since 1985-86, No. 1-seed since 1986, first NCAA Tournament hosting gig since 1994 and first Pac-12 Championship since 2014. 

“In terms of what impact on this program [Watkins] has had, I don’t know if there’s a player that’s had it in their freshman year on a program, like ever,” said Head Coach Lindsay Gottlieb in a post-game press conference.

Despite the significance of the USC scoring record, Watkins had a JuJu-esque reaction to hearing about her accomplishment: “Oh, I wasn’t aware that happened.”

In fact, for Watkins, the biggest moment of the game came when she was on the bench.

With 1:58 remaining in the contest, the chant, “We want Otto! We Want Otto!” swirled around Galen Center. Gottlieb listened and the Trojans’ buttress of the bench, graduate guard India Otto, checked in for her eighth minute of the season. Once she got the ball in her hands, she drove down the baseline to lay in the first 2-pointer of her USC career, prompting the loudest cheers of the afternoon. On the ensuing possession, Otto sunk a triple from the left wing and the Trojan bench went ballistic.

“Words fall short to describe what that feeling meant to me. I literally got goosebumps after I hit that three. I was coming back down and just to hear the crowd … My first year, there was nobody in the stands,” Otto said in her first-ever press conference Saturday. “That’s a core memory made for me for sure and just a culmination of everything that I put into the program the last five years.”

As the clock expired, Watkins sprinted from the sideline and buried Otto, her roommate, in an embrace while jumping up and down.

“I was more excited for Otto than the win,” Watkins said before reconsidering the magnitude of the team’s victory. “Well, no, that’s far.”

Considering that four of the Trojans’ five starters were not on the roster last season, Otto’s extensive tenure is an anomaly on this team. But regardless of the Trojans’ limited time together, they’ve developed a unique chemistry that has allowed them to topple top-ranked teams consecutively all season.

“We’ve been battle- tested,” said graduate guard McKenzie Forbes, reflecting on the time USC played two double overtime games and four NCAA Tournament teams across a 10-day span, “in a way that rapidly matured us.”

The Trojans will need all of the maturity they can muster when they play No. 8 Kansas (20-12, 11-7 Big 12) at Galen Center Monday at 7 p.m. 

The Jayhawks won the women’s NIT championship last April and have retained four of their five starters from the title run. Their winning mentality was on full display Saturday morning when they overcame a double-digit deficit in the final six minutes of regulation to defeat No. 9 Michigan (20-14, 9-9 Big Ten) in overtime. 

The Jayhawks’ top playmakers had a slow start to the game as freshman guard S’Mya Nichols and junior center Taiyanna Jackson — Kansas’ two leading scorers who combined for 27.9 points per game — were limited to four points in the first half. However, the Wolverines’ defense dissolved late in the contest and the duo amassed 29 points by the end of overtime.

While Nichols and Jackson were heating up, junior guard Zakiyah Franklin stepped up to keep the Jayhawks in contention. She finished with 22 points and hit the game-tying 3-pointer with 12.1 left in regulation. 

In its last five games, USC has outscored its opponents 105-50 in the first quarter. With the Jayhawks’ last game in mind, the Trojans will likely have another strong start, but they’ll need to stay consistent to evade a Kansas comeback.

On the defensive end of the court, Kansas allowed the Wolverines’ All-Big Ten junior guard Laila Phelia to play as she had all season as she scored 16 points, just under her season average of 16.8. Phalia was also able to spread the ball out to the perimeter as her teammates knocked down eight 3-pointers. Against USC, the Jayhawks will need to grapple with the sensationalism of Watkins and the sharp shooting of her supporting cast who shot 45% from beyond the arc against the Islanders.

Obviously, the Trojans are not an easy team to prepare for, but if the Jayhawks can draw up a solid game plan, there is one X-factor they won’t be able to contain: Galen Center. 

The Trojans’ home court welcomed 8,386 fans Saturday — more than double the season average — on its first-ever day hosting the NCAA Tournament. The stadium was rocking with excitement all afternoon and there’s no doubt fans will show out for one last hurrah at home.

Monday night’s matchup between No. 1 USC and No. 8 Kansas matchup will be the final game at Galen Center this season. The winner will advance to the Sweet 16 in Portland to play the winner of No. 4 Virginia Tech (25-7, 14-4 ACC) and No. 5 Baylor (25-7, 12-6 Big 12) Saturday.