JuJu Watkins Stars on SLAM 265 as USC Opens November 2

JuJu Watkins is on the cover of SLAM 265, and the magazine's line for the issue is that she is back and ready for her next chapter more than 500 days after the right ACL tear that ended her 2025 NCAA Tournament. The comeback has been staged in public for months: two Nike colorways, a summer on the practice floor and now a magazine cover, all before USC plays a game that counts.

That sequence is the argument here. Watkins's return was marketed first and played second, and the schedule says the playing starts on Monday, November 2.

Nov 2 in Las Vegas at 1pm Pacific

USC opens its 2026 to 2027 season on Monday, November 2 at 1 p.m. PT against UNLV at T Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, as part of the Naismith Hall of Fame Series Opening Night, according to USC. The Big Ten schedule starts December 5 with a road game at Washington. Watkins is expected to play in the opener after missing the entire 2025 to 26 season, and it will be her junior year at USC.

The injury itself is not in dispute. She tore her right ACL in the second round of the 2025 NCAA Tournament against Mississippi State, collapsed at center court and chose to sit the full following season to finish the recovery. SLAM's "500+ days" counts from the injury, and by the opener the count will be higher.

Nike Built Two Colorways Around Her Absence

Nike had already made her the first athlete to partner in the design of a shoe inside LeBron James's NXXT Gen platform. The LeBron NXXT Gen by JuJu "Silver Lining" released May 27, 2026 after about 18 months of design work, and the With Love colorway followed on June 12 in Hyper Crimson and USC gold with shaggy suede across the upper.

The With Love announcement carried a caption that works as a comeback line: "The game's been waiting. Welcome back." That was posted fourteen months after her last game, with no game scheduled. The two colorways landed 16 days apart, and the Silver Lining release had been built around her Watts, Los Angeles roots before the second one pivoted to the school and the return.

The Silver Lining is built on a React foam midsole with forefoot Zoom Air and a leather and TPU upper under a jewel Swoosh, so the shoe was a full performance product and not a tribute item. A shoe cycle needs a story, and Watkins's calendar supplied one while the floor was empty.

Her First SLAM Cover Was Issue 248

SLAM 265 is not her introduction to the magazine. Issue 248 was her first SLAM cover, and SLAM Online's profile of her, "Queen of LA: Juju Watkins is Leading a Renaissance of Women's College Basketball," noted that a few days after the cover shoot she put up a double double in a win over UCLA. The new issue arrives 17 issues later, with a different premise: the player on the cover is no longer taking over women's college basketball but coming back to it.

The caption adds a line that every comeback story needs: "The work never stopped." SLAM does not attach a number to the work, and the rehab timeline from other reporting is the part that fills it in. She was back on the court preparing for the season by late June, more than 14 months after the injury, and her coach Lindsay Gottlieb said when summer camp opened, "She's back on the court and it's just a beautiful thing to see."

The Counterargument Is That She Earned All of It

The case against calling this a marketing sequence is her résumé. Watkins won the 2025 Naismith Trophy, and she was the most discussed player in women's college basketball when the ACL tore. Nike, SLAM and every outlet that has covered her return are responding to a player who has already won the award that matters in her sport.

The two readings sit together without trouble. She earned the attention, and the attention was scheduled around the one thing nobody could schedule, which was how long the knee would take. By the time USC tips off at T Mobile Arena, the shoes will have been out for months. The first minutes she plays on November 2 will be her first in an official game since the night in March 2025 that the count of 500 days started from.