USC's stars were honored as two of the best in all of women's college basketball Wednesday as JuJu Watkins and Kiki Iriafen landed on the AP All-America team.
Watkins, along with Notre Dame's Hannah Hidalgo, made history in becoming only the third and fourth players to earn first-team All-America honors in their freshman and sophomore years, joining Oklahoma’s Courtney Paris and UConn’s Maya Moore.
Watkins, the Big Ten Player of the Year, also made the All-America first-team announced by the USBWA while The Sporting News named her its national player of the year in women's basketball.
Watkins ranks second in the country in scoring at 24.6 points per game while also averaging 6.9 rebounds with team-highs of 109 assists, 69 steals and 58 blocks.
And on the biggest stages she has been at her best. In USC's seven games against AP top-10 opponents in particular, Watkins has averaged 26.2 points, 7.3 rebounds and 2.4 blocks while shooting 35.4 percent from 3-point range in those games.
In the USC record books, Watkins ranks No. 10 all-time in career scoring with 1,684 points — having become the fastest Trojan to score 1,000 career points in program history earlier this season — and with the second-most 30-point games by a Trojan. With 38 points and 30 points vs. rival UCLA this season, Watkins now has 21 career 30-point games — four short of Cheryl Miller's career record of 25.
Meanwhile, Iriafen received third-team All-America honors from the AP and USBWA in her first season with the Trojans as a transfer from Stanford.
A unanimous selection to the All-Big Ten first-team, Iriafen has notched 11 double-doubles this season and is averaging 18.2 points and 8.3 rebounds per game while shooting 50 percent from the floor. Also effective from the stripe, Iriafen ranks No. 44 in the nation with 132 free throws made. She also ranks nationally at No. 14 with her 4.2 offensive rebounds per game and top-50 in points per game and field goals made.
That duo has helped USC (28-3) to a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament, as the Trojans open play Saturday at Galen Center against UNC Greensboro, as well to te program's highest AP ranking since 1984 at No. 2 and USC's first regular-season conference title since 1994 in claiming the Big Ten title with a 16-1 mark in league play.