JuJu Watkins dazzles as USC rallies to stun top-ranked UCLA
LOS ANGELES — The stage was already big, the moment already heavy with anticipation, so JuJu Watkins made sure her performance would not be forgotten.
Against undefeated, top-ranked UCLA, which had been overwhelming teams left and right with its depth and size, it appeared Watkins would need to reach toward perfection for No. 6 USC to have a shot. Instead, in front of a sold-out, electric Galen Center crowd, the sophomore phenom from Los Angeles made history and helped the Trojans upset the Bruins 71-60 on Thursday night.
Over the course of 40 minutes, resting exactly 43.6 seconds in the first half, Watkins stitched together one of the best games of the season, showcasing every facet of her game with 38 points, 11 rebounds, 5 assists and a game-changing 8 blocked shots.
Watkins is the first Division I player with at least 35 points, 5 blocks and 5 assists in a game in the past 20 seasons.
The victory moved USC (22-2, 12-1) into first place in the Big Ten Conference standings. UCLA (23-1, 11-1) will host the next meeting between the teams on March 1.
“Honestly,” senior center Clarice Akunwafo said, “JuJu is amazing.”
Watkins, by now, is known for her prolific scoring. She glides through defenses with a relative ease that makes it look as if she’s playing in slow motion, allowing her to score nearly at will. Even if her style often leaves her vulnerable to cold stretches, they never seem to last long. On Thursday, her 38 points came in unstoppable waves that the Bruins could only hope to tame.
In the first quarter, coming off a game in which she started 0-for-10 shooting from the field, Watkins scored 11 points. In the second, she added 14 more thanks to three 3-pointers. It felt as if no one on the court would be able to stop her.
“I didn’t teach JuJu any of that,” USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb said with a smile. “Just try to put her in situations to be her best self, and she does most of that work. What I was so impressed with tonight, obviously, was just the mentality she came out with.”
That was evident early when Watkins’ first contribution was not a made shot but rather a block just 26 seconds in. In a game that unspooled with enough drama to fill a limited TV series, it was the perfect foreshadowing.
“She’s really active,” UCLA coach Cori Close said. “She’s always been that way. She’s able to get into a rhythm and really anticipate. She takes pride on both sides of the ball.”
By halftime, with USC leading by three, it appeared for the Trojans to hold on, Watkins would need to hit 50 points or more, a total she has reached once in her career. The Bruins were not going to go down easily, and they emerged from the half with a 17-9 run in the third.
At one point, UCLA was up seven points and 6-foot-7 Lauren Betts was starting to get going. Gottlieb called a timeout and decided to commit to doubling Betts with Watkins’ help. Watkins’ scoring was not going to be enough, especially when the rest of her team would go on to shoot 9-of-37 from the field. So Watkins and the Trojans decided it was time to win the game with defense.
“She had my back,” said Akunwafo, who had the main assignment of guarding Betts, who finished with 18 points and 13 rebounds to lead the Bruins. “I knew she had my back with those blocks.”
In the span of one minute in the fourth quarter, Watkins made three blocks. A few minutes later, she added a steal to her stat line, prompting a fast break that she led all the way to the basket for a three-point play with just under six minutes left.
The moment summed up Watkins’ performance. Her play on both ends of the court gave USC a lead it wouldn’t relinquish and ignited one of Galen Center’s loudest cheers. Watkins had willed USC all the way back and eclipsed 1,500 career points in the process.
“It’s whatever it takes to win,” Watkins said. “I didn’t plan on having that many blocks, but it’s whatever we need to win.”
By the time the buzzer sounded and USC had pulled out an 11-point victory, Watkins walked to the center of the court to celebrate with the adoring crowd. She wasn’t done yet, spending ample time taking pictures and signing autographs for the countless fans who wore her No. 12 jersey. After the game, she couldn’t help but acknowledge not only the crowd, but the celebrities assembled courtside to see her stardom continue to rise.
“I’m really just like a kid out there and living out my dream,” Watkins said. “When you have people like that show up, you can’t disappoint.”
But while Watkins was wowed by the presence of celebrities, they, too, stood in awe of her. Even comedian Kevin Hart, who was in attendance, mimicked a bow in her direction.
“We’ll never forget this night,” Gottlieb said. “It’s as good as anything I’ve ever seen.”
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Mistakes on defense and turnovers prove costly for UCLA in first loss
Londynn Jones escaped with the ball on a fast break. Down eight points in the first quarter, all the shifty UCLA guard had to do was make a layup to keep USC within reach amid a JuJu Watkins scoring run. Barreling her way into the paint with too much force, Jones tumbled to the floor, drawing a charging foul.
The play was representative of UCLA’s frustrating start to Thursday’s rivalry game. The Bruins gave up 24 points in the first, tying their season high for a quarter. It was beginning to look like a disaster for coach Cori Close and the top-ranked Bruins in front of a sold-out crowd of 10,528 at Galen Center. UCLA’s best-in-the-Big Ten perimeter defense struggled as Watkins scorched the Bruins’ guards for six first-half three-pointers.
But the Bruins went on a 14-1 run and trailed only by three points at halftime. The UCLA surge continued in the third, with Lauren Betts scoring nine of her 18 points in the quarter as the Bruins capitalized on a 34-15 run spanning the halves to take a seven-point lead.
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“I really loved our response in the first half,” Close said, “to come back and then to really take control of the game in the third.”
Close needed more of that Bruins magic — the same that helped them start the season undefeated and earn their ranking — to close out the sixth-ranked Trojans. Instead, she watched as late lapses doomed UCLA to a 71-60 loss.
Like it did in the first quarter, UCLA gave up 24 points in the fourth quarter and scored just eight. The Bruins made just two of their final 19 shots.
“I got to take responsibility,” Close said. “I got to get us ready for that, and that would be my job to get us extremely fatigued in practice.”
UCLA’s leading scorer struggled in crunch time: Betts missed all three of her fourth-quarter shots — two of which Watkins swatted away on her way to a career-high eight blocks.
“I gotta be better, period,” said Betts, who finished five for 13 from the field, grabbed a game-high 13 rebounds and played a team-high 37 minutes.
USC’s game plan worked on Betts. The Trojans (22-2, 12-1) locked up the 6-foot-7, Naismith College Player of the Year candidate in the interior and mixed and matched bigs — Clarice Akunwafo, Rayah Marshall and Kiki Iriafen — on defense to muck up Betts’ rhythm in the paint. It worked in the first half. Betts had just nine points at the break, with five coming from the charity stripe.
And it worked again in the fourth quarter, leaving UCLA hapless as it tried to get the ball inside to Betts and Janiah Barker before Barker fouled out with 2:07 remaining.
“It’s just a clinic in post defense,” USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb said, emphasizing Akunwafo’s contributions. “We talked about not letting Betts get to her spots.”
UCLA (23-1, 11-1 Big Ten) also struggled with turnovers. The Trojans scored 21 points off 20 Bruins turnovers.
A major turning point came with less than four minutes left when USC freshman guard Kennedy Smith clapped in Kiki Rice’s face as the UCLA point guard crossed half court, raising the crowd noise exponentially. Moments later, Akunwafo’s strip-steal led to an Iriafen layup, helping push the Trojans’ lead to five.
“We didn’t take care of the ball,” said Rice, who finished with 15 points. “They scored a lot off of our turnovers, which we need to clean up. I think the biggest thing is the fourth quarter and how we let them dominate us.”
Close took pleasure in noting that the schedule doesn’t get easier for the Bruins. UCLA faces No. 22 Michigan State at Pauley Pavilion on Sunday and Illinois on Thursday before heading off for a two-game Big Ten trip.
“What these losses painfully teach us is where we have laxed and where we got our butts beat,” Close said. “There’s no time to be in the pity pond.”
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