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The last perfect DI basketball season has officially fallen,\u00a0as USC phenom JuJu Watkins put up a historic performance to lead the No. 6 Trojans to a 71-60 win over then-undefeated No. 1 UCLA on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Watkins<\/a> finished the night with 38 points, 11 rebounds, five assists, and eight blocks, becoming the\u00a0first DI player<\/a>\u00a0to register an overall stat-line so robust in 20 years.<\/p>\n “It took everything. It’s been a rough couple weeks for me,” Watkins said<\/a> after the game, referencing\u00a0uncharacteristic performances<\/a> leading up to Thursday’s rivalry matchup. “To be able to kind of snap back into it and get into my rhythm here at Galen versus UCLA, it’s really all I could ask for.”<\/p>\n “I’m really just like a kid out there and living out my dream.”<\/p>\n Throughout the back-and-forth battle, Watkins’s consistency made all the difference. She scored every one of USC’s 14 second-quarter points, and helped lead a monster fourth quarter in which the Trojans slammed the door by outscoring the Bruins 24-8.<\/p>\n “I didn’t teach JuJu any of that,” commented<\/a> USC head coach Lindsay Gottlieb after the game. “[I] 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.”<\/p>\n With the marquee win, USC now sits firmly atop the Big Ten. That said, UCLA will have a chance to avenge the loss in the pair’s March 1st rematch, when that final regular-season game could decide the conference title.<\/p>\n Until then, the Trojans will be riding high on their Thursday night dominance.<\/p>\n “We’ll never forget this night,” Gottlieb said. “It’s as good as anything I’ve ever seen.”<\/p>\n With no undefeated teams left in DI basketball,\u00a0Watkins’s performance has put the field on notice to not make any assumptions about who might end up on top.<\/p>\n While Sunday will see USC roll against unranked Washington and UCLA try to bounce back against No. 22 Michigan State, the NCAA slate will also serve up two huge Top 10 matchups.<\/p>\n First, No. 7 UConn will take their\u00a0final major regular-season test<\/a> when they visit No. 4 South Carolina<\/a>\u00a0at 1 PM ET, when Paige Bueckers and the Huskies will aim to pull off a similarly impressive USC-inspired upset.<\/p>\n Then at 3 PM ET, No. 5 LSU heads to No. 3 Texas, where the Tigers will hunt their first win over the Longhorns in more than 22 years.<\/p>\n Both elite meetings are set to air live on ABC<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nHow to watch Top 10 NCAA basketball this weekend<\/h2>\n