INDIANAPOLIS (USBWA) – A prolific scorer who led her USC Trojans to their first conference title since 1994 in their first season in the Big Ten Conference, JuJu Watkins has been selected as the winner of the 2024-25 Ann Meyers Drysdale Award as the national player of the year by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association.
Watkins will be recognized at the Women's Final Four in Tampa next month and will formally be presented with the award on April 17 at the USBWA Awards Dinner at the Missouri Athletic Club in St. Louis.
Last season's winner of the USBWA's Tamika Catchings National Freshman Player of the Year Award, Watkins is averaging 23.9 points per game as she has her No. 1-seeded team poised to make a run at its first Final Four since 1986 and its first national title since 1984, the second of back-to-back titles with Hall of Famer Cheryl Miller leading the way.
Although USC advanced to the Sweet 16 last night with a decisive 96-59 win over Mississippi State, Watkins was lost for the season with a knee injury. With 4:43 left in the first quarter, Watkins suffered the season-ending injury on a drive to the basket. "She will undergo surgery and then begin rehabilitation shortly thereafter," according to the school.
Watkins, a 6-2 guard from Los Angeles, is just the fourth sophomore to win the USBWA's national player of the year honor, which is based on regular-season performance. She joins Candace Parker (Tennessee, 2006-07); Maya Moore (Connecticut, 2008-09) and Brenna Stewart (Connecticut, 2013-14). She is the 13th player to earn both the Ann Meyers Drysdale Award and the Tamika Catchings Award in her career, joining the likes of Caitlin Clark, Paige Bueckers, Sabrina Ionescu, Brittney Griner and Catchings herself.
To go with her gaudy scoring average, Watkins adds 6.8 rebounds, 3.4 assists and 2.2 steals per game for the 30-3 Trojans, who were 17-1 in Big Ten play. She has scored in double figures in every game this season – and all but one in her career – and she reached the 1,000-point career mark in just 38 career games, faster than any USC player in program history by ten games.
The now two-time first-team USBWA All-American, Watkins joins Lisa Leslie as the only USC players to earn multiple All-America honors from the association. Tina Thornton is the only other USC player to be named to the USBWA's team. Note that the USBWA has named women's All-Americans only since the 1987-88 season.
During the season, Watkins was among the Ann Meyers Drysdale National Players of the Week seven times. She also got seven nods as the Big Ten Player of the Week.
The Ann Meyers Drysdale Award is presented annually to the women's national player of the year by the USBWA. Named for the legendary UCLA guard, the award was first presented in the 1987-88 season and formally named in Meyers Drysdale's honor in the 2011-12 season. Ann Meyers Drysdale played at UCLA from 1974-78, which pre-dates the USBWA All-America selections. She was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1993 and the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999.
The USBWA was formed in 1956 at the urging of then-NCAA Executive Director Walter Byers. With some 800 members worldwide, it is one of the most influential organizations in college basketball.For more information on the USBWA and its award programs, contact executive director Malcolm Moran at malcolm@usbwa.com.