College Basketball Catchup: JuJu Watkins Shows Off, UConn Rebounds Behind Strong

JuJu Watkins doesn’t look like she’s missed a beat. The UConn Huskies showed the Iowa Hawkeyes that a loss to Michigan was just a blip. A 40-point explosion and career-best game for a Roadrunners’ guard. Here’s what you need to know from yesterday’s slate of college basketball. JuJu Watkins missed USC’s elimination from March Madness in 2025, and the entire subsequent regular season and tournament thanks to tearing her ACL a year-and-a-half back. The star guard is back, though, and looks like she never missed any time at all. Watkins, in her return to the Galen Center, put on the performance of the day across college basketball for both men’s and women’s ball, helping the Trojans to a 118-40 blowout of the Utah State Aggies. The senior scored 32 points, good for the fifth-most of anyone in women’s ball on Sunday, but it was the well-rounded nature of her performance that truly stuck out. Against the Aggies, the 6-2 guard went 4-for-7 from beyond the arc, pulled down 16 rebounds — 12 defensive — while dishing out six assists and recording five steals. Watkins also had a block for good measure, and ended the game with a Game Score of 34.8 in just 27 minutes. She was the 2025 national player of the year in her injury season, and it was thanks to performances like that one. There doesn’t appear to be any rust to shake off; she’ll be a contender for that honor once more, in her likely final season of college hoops. Men’s college basketball got its second 40-point performance of the season on Sunday, this time from Cal State Bakersfield’s Jaden Alexander. The Roadrunners’ guard led all scorers across college ball with 41 points on 14-for-21 shooting, nailing a program record in the Division I era nine three pointers. Alexander, a senior, added five defensive boards, three steals and a block on top of that, and committed just one foul in the 91-80 win against North Dakota State. This was the first 40-point game of Alexander’s collegiate career: his previous high was 35, recorded on Jan. 3 this year against UC Davis in a narrow 81-79 victory. Coincidentally, Alexander’s first start last season came against North Dakota State in mid-December, after coming off the bench in the 10 previous games. He scored 33 more points this time around; if he’s a starter and healthy all season, unlike in 2025-2026, that could be big for the Roadrunners. On the women’s side, No. 2 UConn was looking to avoid repeating the mistakes made in a loss against No. 5 Michigan. The No. 10 Iowa Hawkeyes stood in the way of that, but reigning national player of the year Sarah Strong played like she was determined to keep a losing streak from forming. The junior forward set a career-high with 39 points, leading the Huskies to a 91-79 win over Iowa in UConn’s first game at Storrs this season. It wasn’t just the 39 points, however: Strong shot 15-for-26 overall including 5-for-10 from three, pulled down 10 boards for a double-double, and added three assists and two blocks while committing just two fouls. The lack of fouls let her continue to be aggressive defensively, which was a facet of her game lacking in the loss against the Wolverines thanks to early foul trouble that saw her miss the second quarter and put Michigan right back in control. When Strong is on her game, the Huskies are a tough out. Iowa had four players score in double-digits, including 23 from junior guard Chazadi Wright, but it wasn’t enough to counter Strong. St. John’s once again had to reload its roster after a successful season as Big East champions. Last year, Dillon Mitchell was added to help replenish the roster, but he’s moved on to the NBA, and so now new transfers have to keep the Red Storm thriving. One of those is Tounde Yessoufou, who in his freshman season played for Baylor in the Big 12. He started 34 games for the Bears in 2025-2026 while averaging 32.6 minutes per game, but his numbers were a little inefficient — at least compared to what he’s managed with St. John’s through two games. He averaged 21.8 points per 40 minutes a season ago; he’s added 10 points per 40 minutes to that total so far in 2026-2027, while jumping his rebounds per game from 7.2 to 10.9. His assists, steals and blocks are also all up so far. Of course, it’s early in the year, and St. John’s has only faced Monmouth and Iona so far: it’s not like Yessoufou has dominated Villanova or UConn or some major non-conference opponent to this point. He’s worth keeping an eye on, though, as a player who did well as a freshman but could very well take the leap as a transfer under coach Rick Pitino’s watch, in his second full season of college basketball. As far as the poll was concerned, there wasn’t much difference between Arkansas and Virginia to start the season. The Razorbacks landed at No. 12 and the Cavaliers No. 9 in the preseason rankings. The gap seems visibly wider now: Virginia downed Arizona by 19 points, 91-72, in their ranked-ranked matchup on Sunday, an impressive home dub that featured five different players posting double-digit scoring totals. Sophomore forward Thijs De Ridder and senior guard Sam Lewis led the way with 16 points each — with De Ridder also grabbing 10 rebounds — while seven-foot sophomore center Johann Grunloh and sophomore guard Chance Mallory added 16 points apiece. Freshman forward Nolan Adelunke wasn’t all that far behind, chipping in 13. The bench didn’t provide much in the way of points, but it also didn’t have to with the five starters all playing to that level. No. 1 South Carolina might have lost the national championship game this past spring, but you wouldn’t know it from the way the Gamecocks handled No. 12 UNC on Sunday. South Carolina won 84-39, crushing the Tar Heels and pushing them to an 0-2 start to the season. Sophomore guard Nyla Brooks was the only one to even reach double-digit scoring, with 13, and the bench combined for just 12 points, failing to make up for the starters’ lack of success. This is a terrifying result for the rest of the women’s field: senior forwards Chloe Kitts and Ashlyn Watkins put on a show, with the former posting a double-double with 17 points and 10 rebounds, and Watkins coming off the bench and collecting 10 rebounds of her own in just 17 minutes. Jordan Lee, a junior guard and transfer from rival SEC powerhouse Texas, scored nine points with six rebounds, three assists, three steals and a block in 23 minutes. Sure, South Carolina lost three players to the WNBA Draft this spring, but the Gamecocks didn’t lose any players to the transfer portal, and added Lee and five-star recruit Oliviyah Edwards to the roster. That’s going to help make up for those subtractions. Ask North Carolina.