LOS ANGELES – JuJu Watkins and the rest of the Southern California women's basketball team had a couple of special visitors in the locker room Sunday night.
Cherie Nelson, who held the program's scoring record for many years with a 50-point game, was among several Trojan alumni at Galen Center. She brought her 98-year-old mother, whose house in nearby Altadena was destroyed in the wildfires last week.
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“She told us she’d been reading about how well we’ve been doing and wanted to come and meet JuJu and meet the team and then her mom lost her home,” Trojans coach Lindsay Gottlieb said. “Dealing with that, it was probably up in the air if they were going to come and her mom said, ‘No, I want to go see the USC women’s team play.’”
They were part of a high-energy crowd of 5,881 that included actor Vivica A. Fox and several children at one of the first sporting events held in Los Angeles since the the wildfires began on Tuesday. The Los Angeles Lakers and Clippers are set to resume their schedules on Monday night after having games postponed Saturday.
“I took it as a good opportunity to have some fun,” Watkins said. “Vibes are kind of down here in LA so our goal was to put on a show and entertain people for a couple hours.”
Watkins scored 35 points and Kiki Iriafen added 28 in fourth-ranked USC's 95-73 victory over Penn State.
Watkins, Iriafen and Rayah Marshall are from Los Angeles, while Kennedy Smith is from nearby Chino and Clarice Akunwafo is from Inglewood.
“This week has been hard for LA and for me too, just hearing about the stories,” Watkins said. “People I know were affected by it as well. It’s just really been heavy on our hearts.”
Iriafen is from the San Fernando Valley, which has been threatened by the Palisades fire. Although her family wasn't directly affected, she said people close to her have lost their homes or had to evacuate.
“Just truly trying to spread positivity, do all that we can with donations and I’m very prayerful so I’m into that as well,” Iriafen said.
“We’re very blessed to come here today and play basketball. If we can put a smile on people’s faces for two hours or give them an escape to kind of get away from everything that’s going on right now. we’re super grateful to do that," she said.
Penn State made the trip to Los Angeles after consulting with the Big Ten, administrators from USC and UCLA and doctors.
“They assured us that it was healthy and safe to come play and we trusted their opinion,” Nittany Lions coach Carolyn Kieger said.
Gottlieb said, “We appreciate that they believed enough in the systems to come.”
After the game, the Lions were headed to Long Beach, where they will stay until playing top-ranked UCLA on Wednesday. The Bruins moved the game to Walter Pyramid, about 35 miles from their Westwood campus, which is near the Palisades fire.
“Pivot,” Kieger said. “UCLA has to do it as well so it's an even playing field. For us, we just turn the page and make a new game plan. We'll be ready to compete.”
Kieger said initially her players were full of questions about traveling to Los Angeles, where smoke and ash from the wildfires is affecting air quality.
“The first concern was that everybody would be safe. They’ve been great since we’ve been here,” she said of her team.
USC and UCLA's games against Northwestern were postponed after the Wildcats decided not to travel because of the fires. UCLA had offered to move its game to accommodate the Wildcats, but they still declined.
The Trojans were on the East Coast when the fires broke out.
“I couldn't believe how many texts I got after the Maryland game where people who were in it were saying, ‘This was the best two hours I’ve had in a while just watching,'” Gottlieb said.
Her approach is to keep the Trojans mindful that bigger things are going on around them while giving them a chance to focus on the game they love.
“I guess I would say this will pass,” Watkins said. “The biggest thing for us and for the community is just to have faith and hope that things will get better."
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