With USC star JuJu Watkins set to miss most of the upcoming women’s college basketball season, the UCLA Bruins become the Big Ten Conference favorites, or at least that’s what the USC Women’s Basketball Media Lab podcast believes.
UCLA had their winningest season in program history last year and the Bruins retained stars Kiki Rice and Lauren Betts putting them in a favorable position to win the very competitive Big Ten Conference.
USC Women’s Basketball Media Lab analyst Cece Clay views their experience and continuity as reasons the Bruins should have another successful season, along with the best player in the country set to miss, at least, a large part of the regular season.
“There’s a couple reasons why I put them at No. 1,” Clay said. “One, they were a Final Four team. Two, they have seven people coming back and five of those seven played together. The core pieces that they lost were Janiah Barker, who came off the bench and gave some formidable minutes but I don’t think she met the expectations she wanted to meet as a player, or how she wanted to be used.”
The Bruins also lost Londynn Jones, who stayed in Los Angeles as she transferred to the Trojans, along with guard Elina Aarnisalo and the rest of UCLA’s freshmen class from a season ago. UCLA will replace those who departed with No. 2 overall recruit Sienna Betts, Charlisse Leger-Walker, who didn’t play last year as she recovered from a torn ACL and Gianna Kneepkens, a three-point sniper who came over from Utah.
“The team is just stacked,” Clay said. “What I’m really interested to see is who is going to play point guard? Is it going to be Kiki Rice? Is it going to be Charlisse Leger-Walker? How are they going to fit together on this team?”
Regardless of the fit, an abundance of talent has the makings of a good recipe for Cori Close and the Bruins.