Lindsay Gottlieb highlights how USC game plan changes without JuJu Watkins

USC head coach Lindsay Gottlieb highlighted how the Trojans adjusted their game plan without Juju Watkins on the court. Watkins was lost for the remainder of the season due to a torn ACL.

Gottlieb already mentioned how Watkins was supporting her team and bringing the energy, despite the injury. But the fact remained, USC had to play without her.

Not too many things changed, regarding USC’s gameplan. But make no mistake, Watkins was the best player on the floor and you’ll be forced to make adjustments.

“Yeah, I mean, we put in a couple new things this week, but I didn’t retool the whole offense,” Gottlieb said postgame. “It was more go deeper in the bag of what options are we going to get out of our looks. Obviously, JuJu is such an incredible shotmaker, playmaker, that you don’t often have to get to the back end of something because she can just create.

“So I thought we did a real good job of, we said it’s going to be this is the first look and if they try and take this away, this is the second look, and, hey, this is the third look, and if we get to the fourth look, no one’s ever seen it, least of all me, because we haven’t had to get there at times this year because we’ve had such a high-powered offense early in transition.”

Without having to deal with Watkins, Kansas State was really able to hone in on what was left of USC’s offense. But, the Trojans adapted in the 67-61 win.

“So I was really proud of the fact that K-State had a good game plan and tried to take things away,” Gottlieb said. “We didn’t get some of our easy stuff and we had to work to get to what we wanted, and I thought there were some really important shot-making.

“I thought the way Kiki hung with it and worked her tail off on the defensive end and the offensive end, I knew she’d break through and hit a couple of those jumpers. I thought Rayah hit a couple big jumpers to start the second half to get us going. And then when that attention comes to them, the way that they moved it, and our guard made shots and made some big plays. I thought Avery and Kennedy were both incredible, Heckel was really, really good.”

It was a team effort. Certainly one Watkins would’ve been proud of.

“But it was really a team kind of effort that we needed because you take away just the singular kind of offensive, you know, talent that JuJu is,” Gottlieb said. “Where a lot of things look easier than what they are sometimes.”