LOS ANGELES — She sat atop history in a baggy, brown Nike hoodie, sipping her customary postgame smoothie, the 18-year-old JuJu Watkins wholly unaware of the records that fall every time she steps foot on the hardwood at the Galen Center.
After a rough-and-tumble 87-81 win over Colorado Friday night, media posed to Watkins she’d snapped Cheryl Miller’s record for most 30-point games in a season at USC. Her eyebrows raised, intently.
“Damn,” Watkins muttered, softly.
Oh, and she’d snapped the record for most points scored by a women’s basketball player at the Galen Center. Ever. And Watkins’ mouth puckered into a visible ope, receiving a gleeful dap at the postgame dias from senior McKenzie Forbes.
“Wait,” Watkins questioned, “what about men’s?”
Yeah, that too. She’d blitzed past Boogie Ellis’ 35 points in 2023. She’d blitzed past Katin Reinhardt’s 35 in 2015. She’d blitzed past anyone who’d stepped forth on USC’s 18-year-old home floor, and the legend of JuJu Watkins only continues to grow, as the throngs of kids at Galen who boast her jersey and mob her for autographs postgame witnessed another dash of history on Friday night against Colorado.
Watkins, her jumper in rhythm and her stamina relentless, lit up the Buffs for 42 points — 10-of-19 from the floor, 18-of-18 from the free-throw line — as USC (21-4 overall, 11-4 in Pac-12 play) nabbed their seventh straight win in a thicket of a Pac-12 conference. And, yes, she finished with her 11th 30-point game of the year in a season that’s far from over, fittingly set in front of Miller herself, the USC icon-turned-courtside-mainstay.
“Nah, that’s insane, honestly,” Watkins said, when the record was mentioned postgame. “But of course, it’s Cheryl Miller, so — long way to go ’till I’m in that conversation, but I’m just happy to be able to be a part of that Trojan legacy.”
A few minutes into the fourth quarter of a wild shootout with Colorado, with turnovers adding up and whistles shrieking nonstop, Watkins’ teammates mysteriously huddled around her on the bench. Her already-fabled no. 12 jersey had smeared with blood, and she emerged seconds later sporting a foreign “32” – almost seeming too big for her, spilling out over her shorts the rest of the night. For three quarters, the freshman had scrapped incessantly for buckets, wiping away the memory of a 6-for-32 night the previous weekend at Oregon State with every pull-up jumper and charge to the rim.
And instantly out of the break, 12 becoming 32 in the final minutes of a truly inebriated basketball game, Watkins attacked. She drained a pull-up jumper to put USC ahead by double-digits, her shot in rhythm all night. She drove into Colorado’s star big Aaronette Vonleh, fouling her out, a few minutes after wearing down her primary defender in Jaylyn Sherrod and fouling her out.
“Honestly, I would argue that that’s happening every play, honestly,” Watkins said, when asked about drawing fouls postgame. “It’s just, like – it’s aggressive. I love it, but it gets annoying sometimes.”
She was hounded, battered and bruised, turning the ball over six times before the halftime break on her way to a 10-turnover night. As smooth as her jumper looked, her movements were chaos, in one second-quarter stretch nabbing a steal and turning it over and picking it right back and then traveling all within a few-second span.
Stalwart Forbes was electric herself all night, finishing with 24 points, five threes and seven assists; an in-your-mouth transition pull from her and two bombs from Kayla Padilla put USC up 13 with time winding down in the second quarter. But the Buffs responded with three straight triples to cut the Trojans’ lead to four at halftime, trading blows all throughout the third quarter of a game that coach Lindsay Gottlieb called a “heavyweight prize fight” postgame.
Watkins won. In mid-January, when Colorado knocked off USC in their first meeting, it was Sherrod who drew an offensive foul on Watkins to send the freshman to the bench prematurely with five fouls. On this night, with Sherrod again playing her tough, Watkins drew two fouls in the third quarter, the crowd cheering as Colorado coach JR Payne subbed Sherrod out with three fouls. When McKenzie Forbes drew another foul on Sherrod a few minutes later, the Colorado guard went straight to the tunnel after being pulled, clapping her hands in sheer frustration.
A timely fourth-quarter steal-and-finish by Kaitlyn Davis, and a triple from McKenzie Forbes, sealed a choppy fourth quarter marred by whistles. And after the final buzzer sounded in the seventh-ranked Trojans’ win over No. 11 Colorado, Watkins held her hands aloft to the crowd like Maximus to the Coliseum in “Gladiator.”
“It’s just pretty amazing,” Forbes said postgame, “to see the city rally behind what’s going on here.”