JuJu Watkins Returns After 589 Days: 21 Points as No. 3 USC Routs UNLV 100-68 in Las Vegas
The return was the story of opening day: Watkins' first game in 589 days lasted 25 minutes and produced 21 points, and USC turned a 15-point halftime lead into a 31-10 third quarter and a hundred-point night.
College basketball's opening day had a headline act, and it was a comeback. JuJu Watkins played her first game in 589 days on Monday in Las Vegas, and the No. 3 USC Trojans opened their season with a 100-68 rout of UNLV at T-Mobile Arena - with Watkins, by every account in USA TODAY's live file, unable to hide how happy she was to be back on the court.
The line, for a player 589 days removed from her last game, was a starter's line in a cameo's minutes: 21 points, five rebounds, two assists, two steals and a block in 25 minutes. She was not even her team's high scorer - sophomore guard Jazzy Davidson led USC with 23 points, and freshman Saniyah Hall added 22 in her college debut, the kind of supporting box score that turns a star's return into a team's statement.
The game broke open after halftime. USC led 48-33 at the break, then shot 70 percent in a third quarter it won 31-10 - Watkins scoring 11 of her 21 in the frame - to lead 83-49 on the way to 100. A season ago, without her, USC finished 18-14. With her, the Trojans open at No. 3 in the country and looked it for a half that ended the argument. Pensacola's own college season tipped tonight at the UWF Field House; the national season's first night belonged, as it was always likely to, to the player who had waited 589 days for it.
