Sports
JuJu Watkins leads USC to exciting double-OT win over UCLA in Pac-12 tournament
With 11.2 seconds left, JuJu Watkins glanced over her shoulder and locked eyes with her mother and father sitting in the front row at MGM Grand Garden Arena. She smiled. Relieved.
When she ran straight toward India Otto at the buzzer, she shouted as the fifth-year guard wrapped her in a tight hug. Ecstatic. No signs of pain here.
The star freshman fought through an early ankle injury to finish with 33 points and 10 rebounds as second-seeded USC survived in double overtime against third-seeded rival UCLA 80-70 in the semifinals of the Pac-12 tournament on Friday. The Trojans will play No. 1 seed Stanford in the final Sunday at 2 p.m. PST on ESPN.
From being picked to finish sixth in the Pac-12 preseason poll to earning the program’s highest seed in the conference tournament, USC (25-5) is one win away from its first conference title since 2014. The rise to prominence has stunned even the generational talent at the center of it all.
“I’m not going to lie,” Watkins said giggling, “I did not think this would happen this soon. … I’m just blessed, honestly. Better than anything I could have hoped for, really.”
After losing nine straight to the Bruins, USC has won consecutive rivalry games, including a victory at Galen Center in January. The Trojans won for the first time against their crosstown rivals in the Pac-10/12 tournament after losing four postseason matchups to the Bruins.
Friday’s game might have been the most tense of them all. It felt like a Final Four matchup, USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb said. Although they were seeded behind the Trojans in the conference tournament, the Bruins (25-6) recently were projected as a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament by ESPN.
“We always say that the tougher, more together team wins and they were a little bit tougher than us,” UCLA coach Cori Close said. “And just being really candid, that’s always on me, it’s my responsibility to have my team be in position to be that and we weren’t.”
USC guard McKenzie Forbes, right, and UCLA forward Gabriela Jaquez, left, react after a shot-clock violation was called on the Bruins during the first half of their Pac-12 tournament game Friday.
(David Becker / Associated Press)
UCLA center Lauren Betts had 17 points and 18 rebounds. Guard Charisma Osborne led the Bruins with 21 points, including 10 points in the second quarter that helped UCLA battle back from a 16-point first-quarter deficit.
USC finished the first quarter with 16 consecutive points, including 14 after Watkins returned from an ankle injury she sustained 48 seconds into the game. She aggravated it in the first minute of the first overtime and couldn’t put any weight on her left leg after collapsing under the basket. She was helped to the bench with her arms draped over the shoulders of two team staff members. One minute and 34 seconds of game time later, Watkins tightened her shoe laces and checked back into the game.
It wasn’t anything new to Gottlieb, who recalled watching a 6:30 a.m. preseason practice at Sierra Canyon when the star player turned her ankle at the beginning of the session. She returned then, too.
“This kid is not normal,” Gottlieb said.
UCLA had chances to win at the end of regulation and the first overtime, getting stops on defense, securing a rebound and calling timeout with 1.9 seconds remaining. Both times, the Bruins failed to get a shot off.
Close admitted that if given the opportunity, she likely would have changed the call on the first play that ended with Kiki Rice heaving a shot after the buzzer because the Bruins couldn’t create a clean catch off the inbound pass. At the end of overtime, Angela Dugalić in-bounded the pass to Osborne, who drove to the baseline and passed it to a teammate as the buzzer sounded.
“That’s not the place where I thought we won or lost the game,” Close said. “Giving up defensive rebounds on free throws, we were up four, we control that.”
UCLA led by four with 57 seconds remaining in overtime when Watkins went to the free throw line for two shots. She sank the first — one of her 14 made free throws on 17 attempts — but missed the second. Kaitlin Davis turned the possession into a four-point trip, collecting the offensive rebound and shoveling it to Kayla Padilla, who whipped a pass to McKenzie Forbes for the tying three-pointer with 50 seconds left.
Uniting USC’s trio of Ivy League transfers, Gottlieb called the play “Ivy Special.” The maturity of USC’s graduate transfers who all starred at their former schools, combined with Watkins’ immense talent has made the Trojans a dangerous team in clutch moments. USC has won 12 games with single digit final score margins this season, more than any other Pac-12 team.
“We can get the win,” said Davis, who finished with 16 rebounds, “because we’ve done it before.”
USC players pointed four fingers down in celebration. The band’s gleaming silver sword found its way into Watkins’ hands. She raised it into the air as USC players paraded onto the Pac-12 Networks set and she placed USC’s red sticker on the oversized tournament bracket, putting the Trojans into the final against Stanford.
USC’s band and traveling student section chanted, “Ju-Ju! Ju-Ju!”
Sports
Ex-NFL star implores Russell Wilson to hang it up: ‘Do your TV thing’
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Russell Wilson has had his share of ups and downs in his NFL career.
He helped the Seattle Seahawks to a Super Bowl championship in 2013 and was named to the Pro Bowl four times. But the last few years of his career arguably did some damage to his legacy as he’s spent the last three seasons with three different teams.
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New York Giants quarterback Russell Wilson watches from the sidelines during the second quarter against the Philadelphia Eagles at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., on Oct. 9, 2025. (Brad Penner/Imagn Images)
Wilson is still on the free-agent market as he looks to latch on to a new team for 2026. However, former NFL star Aqib Talib implored Wilson to hang up the cleats.
“Do your TV thing, Russ. It’s over with, man. Once you’ve got to decide, do I even want to play?” Talib said on “The Arena: Gridiron.” “I think you don’t really want to play. I hate when guys get to the later part of their career and then they start doing the bounce-around thing and they’re not going to win. There was no chip in New York. That’s just going to be another stop on your resume.”
Wilson reportedly garnered some interest from NFL teams.
New York Giants quarterback Russell Wilson stands on the field before a game against the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, PA on Oct. 26, 2025. (Bill Streicher/Imagn Images)
He told the New York Post that the New York Jets were one of them.
Wilson also was reportedly a candidate to take Matt Ryan’s spot on CBS’ “The NFL Today” after Ryan left to take a front office job with the Atlanta Falcons.
Wilson has 46,966 passing yards and 353 passing touchdowns in 205 career games, but the 2025 season with the New York Giants was one to forget.
Wilson started three games and made some bizarre decisions in a loss against the Chiefs. Jaxson Dart was named the starting quarterback. As he came in to take a few snaps while Dart was being checked for a concussion, Wilson was booed.
New York Giants quarterback Russell Wilson watches from the sidelines during the second half against the Denver Broncos at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver, Colo., on Oct. 19, 2025. (Ron Chenoy/Imagn Images)
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Should he end up signing with another team, Wilson will be entering his age-38 season.
Sports
Artists, community come together to welcome World Cup to Inglewood with murals and more
A lot has changed since Jacori Perry attended Morningside High School.
Perry is now a renowned artist who goes by the names Mr. Ace and AiseBorn.
The school is now known as Inglewood High School United.
And the lecture hall on that campus now features a large, ornate mural of a soccer ball being grasped by the hands of two people — freshly painted by the 2004 Morningside graduate as the city of Inglewood prepares to host eight World Cup games at SoFi Stadium starting next month.
Local artist Mr. Ace works on his mural at Inglewood High School United on May 11. The artists, whose real name is Jacori Perry, attended the school when it was known as Morningside High more than two decades ago.
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
“If you told me that I would be back here painting one of the walls on this campus when I was in high school, I don’t think that I necessarily would have foreseen it,” Mr. Ace said as he was putting the finishing touches on his mural last week. “So I’m a little in amazement about just the way life works in that sense.”
He was one of several Los Angeles-based artists to participate in a Road to World Cup Community Day last month at Inglewood High United. Many of the artists — including Juan Pablo Reyes (“JP murals”), Michelle Ruby Guerrero (“Mr. B Baby”) and Angel Acordagoitia — sketched designs on portable panels (12-feet by 8-feet) and picnic tables for community members to paint.
The picnic tables will remain at the high school in front of Mr. Ace’s mural. The mobile murals will be placed throughout LAX to welcome visitors arriving for the World Cup.
Kathryn Schloessman, CEO of the Los Angeles World Cup 2026 Host Committee, said in a news release that the event was “just one example of how the energy of the World Cup can be felt in neighborhoods across our region.”
“Students, artists, and volunteers came together to create a work of art that will live on well beyond the end of the tournament,” Schloessman said. “It’s a reflection of the creativity, diversity, and community pride that makes our region so special as we prepare to host the world for FIFA World Cup 2026.”
Community members were encouraged to take part in the painting process, no matter their skill level.
“We made it easy enough for people that have zero experience to a proficient level of experience, for them to all be involved,” said Reyes, who designed and helped paint two mural panels and three tables. “We did the sketch, and then I tried to dab a little bit of color — whatever color is supposed to be there, I dabbed a little bit of color right there, so they would have a guide. …
Students and community members help paint a mural panel during a Road to World Cup Community Day event May 2 at Inglewood High School.
(Dawn M. Burkes / Los Angeles Times)
“I was right there, kind of supervising, making sure that everything went as planned. And if anybody has questions, they’re more than welcome to let me know about them. But, yeah, it’s pretty easy for them to kind of be involved and feel that sense of ownership and have a sense of pride that, ‘Yeah, I was part of that mural-creation process.’ It’s a rich experience for them.”
Acordagoitia sketched several table-top designs for the public to paint at the event.
“They did great,” he said of the community members. “They helped a lot. They were asking questions. They got all the other colors correct. So, yeah, they were excited. A lot of kids were excited to see the live painting, because now kids are used to being on their phones. So that was a great experience for them.”
Acordagoitia also opted to paint a mural panel on his own because “it was a little more technical,” involving portraits of his 8-year-old son, a nephew and a friend.
“I wanted to focus more on the youth because that’s really our future,” he said. “So that’s, that’s the main thing about the mural, just about the kids, soccer, culture, community. It’s exciting for me, because I grew up playing soccer and to include soccer with art, it’s just a dream come true.”
Guerrero said “the community was a big help in filling in all the background colors that I need in order to build the detail and layers” on the two mural panels she designed.
“My whole style is based on culture. And I think that there’s a connection there with the World Cup and how I feel like it brings together all the culture and just, like, celebration,” Guerrero said. “It kind of goes hand in hand with the type of work I do, because my stuff is really festive, celebrating culture. And just as an L.A.-based artist, I think the collaboration made sense.”
The four artists also took part in another Road to World Cup Community Day in downtown L.A. at Gloria Molina Grand Park on March 14. At that event, the artists sketched designs on large sculptures shaped like soccer balls and an oversized picnic table, also for community members to paint.
While Mr. Ace opted to paint his permanent mural at Inglewood High School United on his own, he was sure to include the community theme into his work.
“The idea was really centered around just creating something that was community-based — something that represented the World Cup but also represented some sense of community,” he said. “And so what I did was try to create something that was symbolic, very direct in terms of its relationship to soccer and figuring out through that how to create something simple that [brings] into that a sense of community. And that’s how I landed on the two hands holding the soccer ball.”
Local artist Mr. Ace works on his World Cup-themed mural at Inglewood High School United on May 11.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
Back when he was a student on that campus, Mr. Ace said he was always involved in art and knew he wanted a career as an artist. He struggled to come up with the right words to describe how it felt being back there creating a work of art to be shared with the students, all of the community and everyone who happens to see it on the way to a World Cup match.
“I guess there’s no words to really describe it,” he said. “I think if any artist gets the opportunity to paint at their own high school — especially if they’ve been doing large-scale works around the city, the country or the world — I think that is a little touching. When it’s attached to something like the World Cup … you know, a large part of my childhood was spent in Inglewood, so coming from my circumstances and life, I think it’s even more intriguing.”
Sports
Indy 500: Counting Down The 10 Best Finishes In Race History
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The best Indianapolis 500 finish could be subjective, depending on which driver a fan was rooting for to win.
It certainly is in the eye of the beholder.
So take this list for what it’s worth. One view of the 10 best finishes in Indianapolis 500 history. Of course, it skews to more recent decades when the runs have come a little faster and the finishes have had a tendency to be a little closer.
We’ll add one each day to this list of fantastic finishes ahead of the 110th running of the Indy 500 on May 24 (12:30 p.m. ET on FOX).
10. Ericsson outduels O’Ward (2022)
After a red flag, Marcus Ericsson held off Pato O’Ward in a two-lap shootout. The shootout didn’t last two laps, though, as there was a crash on the final lap behind them. Ericsson had a comfortable lead when the red flag came out for a crash with four laps to go, a situation where in past Indianapolis 500 races, they likely would have ended the race under caution with Ericsson as the winner.
9. Foyt survives chaos (1967)
How does a driver who wins by two laps end up on this list? It’s because the win nearly didn’t happen on the last lap. A big crash with cars and debris littering the frontstretch just ahead of Foyt as he came to the checkered flag forced him to navigate through the wreckage for the win.
8. Sato can’t catch Franchitti (2012)
This was one of those finishes where the leader holds on for the win, but boy did the leader have to hold on. Takuma Sato tried to pass Dario Franchitti early on the final lap but to no avail and Franchitti sped off for the victory. This was one of those Indy 500s that made you hold your breath all the way to the checkered flag.
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