Caitlin Clark’s heir apparent — JuJu Watkins — comes to Big Ten next season

Judea Skies Watkins — known as JuJu — might be the story of the year in women’s college basketball were it not for Iowa’s Caitlin Clark.

Next year, Watkins’ story is the Big Ten’s story when USC enters that conference. For now, she’s giving the Pacific-12 a lot to read about.

Watkins, a 6-foot-2 guard from Los Angeles, is a freshman who is averaging 26.1 points for the No. 9, 12-1 Trojans, or Women of Troy. They’re called both.

That’s more scoring than any player in the nation except for Clark, who takes a 31.3-point average into Wednesday’s game at Purdue for the No. 3, 15-1 Hawkeyes.

Watkins also averages 7.3 rebounds, 3.7 assists, 2.4 steals and 1.8 blocked shots. She has made 42.4 percent (28-of-66) of her 3-point tries. She scored 32 points in her first college game, a win over Ohio State.

She isn’t a Clark copy. Watkins doesn’t shoot nearly as many threes as Clark, and Clark has twice as many assists. USC has two other players with almost as many assists as Watkins.

Recently, USC Coach Lindsay Gottlieb said she had thought about giving Iowa Coach Lisa Bluder a call to ask how she handles Clark’s stardom.

“I think we’re headed for some unprecedented things,” Gottlieb told Associated Press. “(Watkins) handles all of this with such grace.”

LeBron James and Kevin Hart are among people who have attended USC games this season. Saturday has one whopper of a women’s game when Iowa hosts No. 14 Indiana (13-1). The same day, USC is home against No. 2 UCLA (14-0). The Trojans’ only loss was at UCLA last Dec. 30.

Maybe USC will play at Iowa next season. Let’s hope so.

As a freshman, by the way, Clark averaged 26.6 points.

By the way, if Clark ends this season as the nation’s leading scorer, it will be the fifth time a Hawkeye has done it in the last seven years (Megan Gustafson, 2018-19, Clark 2021-22).