JuJu Watkins scores 51 as Southern Cal wins at No. 4 Stanford in women’s basketball
Almost singlehandedly, JuJu Watkins destroyed a near-Sisyphean mound of historical precedent in Palo Alto on Friday night as No. 15 USC defeated No. 4 Stanford 67-58.
Entering a sold-out Maples Pavilion, the Trojans had managed just a single victory in 30 tries against the Cardinal with just one triumph ever at Stanford, and USC would have certainly continued this losing legacy if not for the individual brilliance of JuJu Watkins. The freshman phenom and Naismith award contender scored 51 points on Friday for 76 percent of the Trojans’ total output, the highest percentage ever recorded in the HerHoopStats database dating back to 2009, and was the only offensive option for long stretches of USC’s upset victory.
Watkins moves past Cherie Nelson (50) for USC’s highest individual scoring mark, previously set back in 1989.
Watkins’ scorching shooting — she finished the afternoon 14-26 from the field and 17-19 at the line, including six threes — stood in stark contrast to her peers on the floor, as the two teams combined to shoot just above 30 percent on field goals. This erraticism showed early, as Stanford and USC missed their first four shots, before JuJu Watkins, naturally, broke the deadlock with an early triple.
She turned facilitator on USC’s next basket, dropping a dime to center Rayah Marshall, but with her squad buried in an early 13-7 hole, Watkins took matters into her own hands. Scoring USC’s next 16 points, she turned a five-point deficit into a three-point edge early in the second quarter, and by halftime, Watkins had pulled the Trojans even and totaled 27 points.
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An apparent android through the first 25 minutes, Watkins’ humanity finally started to seep through late in the third quarter, committing two turnovers and missing her final three shot attempts to close the third quarter. McKenzie Forbes came to the aid of her briefly slumping star. Despite a difficult 5-18 shooting afternoon, Forbes found some consistency during Watkins’ lull with two crucial threes that persevered USC’s double-digit advantage entering the fourth quarter.
Stanford, inevitably, would make a late charge to preserve its perfect home record, cutting the once 13-point deficit down to a single possession on two occasions inside the final four minutes. Each time, however, Watkins and Forbes respectively would answer with a clutch jumper and clutch free-throw shooting late, icing a historic victory for the visiting Trojans,
