After winning 14 of 17 Pac-12 freshman of the week honors, USC’s JuJu Watkins was named conference freshman of the year on Tuesday. The freshman phenom who leads the conference in scoring at 27.8 points and rewrote USC’s record books led the Trojans to their highest-ever seed in the Pac-12 tournament, entering this week’s event as the No. 2 team, opening the postseason in the quarterfinals on Thursday against Washington or Arizona.
With Watkins at the center of USC’s revival, the Trojans (23-5, 13-5 Pac-12) are primed to make their first back-to-back NCAA tournament appearances since 2005-06 and are currently ranked fifth in the country.