WNBA sensation Caitlin Clark sent a warning to USC starlet JuJu Watkins after she smashed the former Iowa star’s college record and eyes breaking more accomplishments.
Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark sent a warning to USC starlet JuJu Watkins after the 19-year-old smashed her college record.
On Friday, Watkins starred in the Trojan’s 81-50 win over the Santa Clara Broncos to extend their perfect season record. The sophomore played 33 minutes, scoring 22 pints with five rebounds and five assists, taking her total career college points tally to 1000.
Watkins reached the landmark in her 38th game, tied for the fourth-fewest games in NCAA Division I history and two quicker than Clark achieved the feat during her time in Iowa. The teenage star will also have her eyes on Clark’s other records.
Clark became the all-time leading scorer in Division I women’s basketball and later the all-time leading scorer in both male and female Division I basketball, reaching the milestone in 40 games. Meanwhile, Watkins set the all-time national record for scoring by a freshman last season with 920 points.
Watkins looks set to follow in the footsteps of Clark but the Indiana Fever star has warned her about the inevitable spotlight that she has already started to receive. “She was like, ‘I had this attention for a year and a half, two years,’” USC head coach Lindsay Gottlieb said as per the Orange County Register, remembering Clark’s words to Watkins. “She said to JuJu, ‘You’re going to have it for the next three.’”
Clark went a step further earlier in the year when she met Gottlieb after the Fever’s practice at USC’s Galen Center before their match with the Los Angeles Sparks. The WNBA Rookie of the Year gave the USC coach her phone number and offered to help her and Watkins manage the attention.
JuJu Watkins has been tipped as a future star of the WNBA (
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Getty Images)
“I’m certainly going to utilize that as a resource, if she’s this willing,” Gottlieb said. “I think that’s just a neat thing. And I do think it’s really cool on her part to be willing to pay it forward, so to speak, and help someone else.”
Clark has admitted that all the attention gets overwhelming at times. “The hardest part about being Caitlin Clark I would say is having to feel like you’re always ‘on,'” Clark said.
“You just have bad days, and those days where you don’t want to talk to anyone, but somebody comes up to you and this is their 10-second interaction with you, so you better smile and be kind. But at the same time, it’s just like, you want to be normal sometimes.”
Gottlieb spoke about Watkins after she reached the 1000 points mark. Watkins achieved the feat 20 games quicker than USC’s career scoring leader Cheryl Miller, who scored 3018 points in total. “When you break a record at USC, it hits a little different because the people you break the record from are so great. JuJu belongs in that conversation, and we’re all comfortable in saying it. It was the great Cheryl Miller who was next,” she said.
