"Always been ahead of the curve." Fans react as JuJu Watkins' 8th grade hooping clip resurfaces online

USC Trojans' JuJu Watkins is one of the biggest young stars in women's college basketball. She has established herself as one of the best players in the sport and has done this despite being one of the younger players in the NCAA. However, 1being younger than her opponents has never been an issue for Watkins.

On Wednesday, a photo and video from Watkins' time as a player in eighth grade surfaced on Instagram. The photo included a screenshot of a tweet about how good Watkins was while playing up a grade:

"We don't talk enough about how JuJu in 8th grade playing up looked like she was college ready."

The Instagram post then included the caption:

"Juju has looked college ready since 8th grade."

"Always been ahead of the curve," one fan wrote.

"So she been doing this! Yes she looks college ready in 8th," another fan commented.

"Whoever was on O in the first clip was on her Amerigo Vespucci," a fan posted.

Here is how other fans reacted to Watkins' resurfaced video:

"We don’t talk about her enough. Not enough know what we knew in LA. You have to track her whole career to comprehend her trajectory to help you understand where her talent is headed. She’s different," one fan wrote.

"I look at how the information transfers over. Whoever was teaching her was teaching her? She picked up that information quickly. By the 8th grade is intellect," another fan commented.

"Bc we don’t care. Ya’ll gave that girl stardom on credit," a fan said.

Image via the comments of the Instagram post.

JuJu Watkins will need to carry more of USC's offensive load next season

JuJu Watkins has been a star since she started her NCAA career. As a freshman, she immediately became a scoring threat, averaging 27.1 points, 7.3 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 2.3 steals and 1.6 blocks per game. However, this past season, her numbers took a step back because she did not need to carry as much of the offensive load.

Watkins was still the best player on the USC Trojans, but with Kiki Iriafen transferring from Stanford, Watkins had another dynamic scorer to play with. However, Iriafen is now in the WNBA. So, JuJu Watkins will need to carry a bigger offensive load next season.

About the author

Alexander O'Reilly is a journalist at Sportskeeda from Kingston, Ontario with over seven years in the field at companies including SenShot, RVBlogger, Monarch Media, WordAgents, GSeC LLC, and IGC.

His favorite college team is Duke, and his favorite sporting memory was Duke winning March Madness in 2010. JJ Redick was Alex's favorite college player when he was young but more recently, Caleb Williams gets the nod. As the Chicago Bears are Alex's favorite NFL team, this was a perfect match.

Alex's proudest moment came when he was interviewed by a radio station in Ottawa on his opinion on recent moves by the Ottawa Senators, which gave him a confidence boost and the knowledge that he could succeed as a writer.

Aside from sports, Alex likes to spend his time playing games. He is also very passionate about running and strives to improve at the half and full marathon distances.

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Edited by Alexander O'Reilly