"Kill your foot on their necks": LeBron James, Kevin Durant & more marvel as JuJu Watkins lights up scoreboard with historic 51-point performance
USC Trojans’ JuJu Watkins had a historic performance against the No. 4 Stanford Cardinals. She dropped 51 points in a 67-58 win against the Cardinals on Friday.
Watkins' performance drew national attention, and she was hailed by NBA superstars like LeBron James, Kevin Durant and ESPN’s NBA Today host Malika Andrews.
James posted multiple stories hailing Watkins’ performance against the Cardinals. In one of the stories, the Lakers star captioned:
“I thought I told you to cut it out lil sis!!!! Oh yeah I did say don’t! Kill you foot on their necks! Ayyyyyeee!”
Durant posted the picture of the USC’s starting lineup’s score on his Instagram story. Applauding Watkins’ performance, KD captioned the story:
“My goodness. What a night by JuJu Watkins.”
She also drew applause from former NBA players like former Sixth Man of The Year Jamal Crawford and Dorell Wright.
Malika Andrews also took to her Instagram to haul Watkins' performance. She reposted a post by ESPN.
Watkins’ performance came after she was heartbroken by the Trojans’ loss to the Washington Huskies by three points. Before their game against the Stanford Cardinals, USC had lost three of their four games.
JuJu Watkins' performance is only behind Kelsey Plum
JuJu Watkins' performance has not just pushed into the conversation for the freshman of the year but also for the player of the year conversation.
Watkins scored 51 points, only behind Kelsey Plum in Pac-12 history. Plum scored 57 points in 2017 against Utah. With 40 points in just three quarters, she also broke the previous record for most points in three quarters, which had been held by Cherry Miller (39) since 1982.
One of the most impressive parts of Watkins' performance was that she dropped it against Tara VanDerveer, arguably the best coach in the Pac-12. She scored 76 percent of all USC Trojan’s points.
Her 51 points came on shooting 14 of 26 shots from the field. Watkins also registered 11 rebounds and became the only freshman player in Division I to register a 50-point double-double. She also became the only player in this season with a 40-point double-double.