Grounded on the Way to Greenville: JuJu Watkins and No. 3 USC Were Stuck in Los Angeles Before Sunday's Showdown With No. 1 South Carolina

Friday was supposed to be a travel day. The USC women's basketball team was due to land in Greenville, S.C., for one of the most anticipated games of the young season, a Sunday showdown with No. 1 South Carolina, the New York Post reported. Instead, the Trojans never got off the ground.

When the Federal Aviation Administration ordered a nationwide ground stop Friday afternoon, the program's official account posted that the team had been "grounded in Los Angeles" and promised updates as they came. The game is set for 1 p.m. Sunday.

USC was far from alone. Yahoo Sports reported that many women's college basketball teams had their weekend travel thrown into question by the stoppage.

The pressure eased Friday night. The FAA lifted the nationwide order in the evening, with the flight-tracking service Flightradar24 putting the end of the stop at 8:15 p.m. Eastern. There was no public word Friday night on when the Trojans would depart, but with departures moving again, a Saturday flight east would still put them in South Carolina a day before tip-off.

That is not ideal preparation for a game of this size. A cross-country trip the day before a top-three matchup squeezes the routines coaches value most: a practice in the arena, a film session, a full night of sleep in the right time zone. But it is a far cry from the worst case, which was no trip at all.

This is the kind of November game that shapes March. South Carolina opened the season atop the Associated Press preseason poll with 23 of 31 first-place votes, and USC was ranked third, behind only the Gamecocks and UConn, CBS Sports reported. Yahoo Sports noted that South Carolina has reached six consecutive Final Fours.

For USC, the story of the season is the return of JuJu Watkins. The former national player of the year missed all of last season while recovering from a knee injury and is back in the starting lineup, Yahoo Sports reported. The difference she makes showed up plainly in the record book: the Trojans went 31-4 in 2024-25 with her and 18-14 last season without her.

She has help this time. Yahoo Sports pointed to Jazzy Davidson and Saniyah Hall as players with skill sets similar to Watkins', with Davidson possibly sliding into more of a point guard role, and to returner Kennedy Smith, who averaged 11.5 points a game last season. The same analysis cautioned that Watkins will need some time to get back into a normal flow and rhythm, and that some rough edges in November should be expected.

There is a lot to like about this matchup before a single shot goes up. South Carolina has built one of the steadiest programs in American sports on defense, depth and discipline. USC has a generational talent who did the hard, unglamorous work of a long rehabilitation to get back on the floor. That kind of perseverance deserves a big stage, and Sunday provides one.

The travel trouble also offers the Trojans a test that has nothing to do with basketball. Plans fall apart. Flights get canceled. The teams that handle it best are the ones whose leaders stay calm, keep players focused and treat the setback as part of the journey rather than an excuse. How USC carries itself into Greenville will say something about this group, whatever the scoreboard says on Sunday.

The first item on the list is simple: get the team to South Carolina. USC said it would share updates, and fans should watch the program's official channels on Saturday for travel news. If the Trojans arrive on schedule, Sunday's game in Greenville will give the country its first real measuring stick of the season, with the defending standard-bearer on one side and a returning star on the other.

For South Carolina, the job is to protect the top spot at home in its own state. For USC, it is a chance to show that the Watkins era picks up right where it left off, flight delays and all.