Kobe Bryant was not wrong when he singled out Jewell Loyd as one of the great future projects of women’s basketball. A player made to succeed who is a fixture in the United States Dream Team, who dazzled in her passage through Perfumeras Avenida and who has now rendered the WNBA at her feet with an exhibition for history.
The guard tied the league record for the best scoring in a quarter by scoring 22 points in the first quarter. But he did not succeed in the 12 minutes that the act lasts. Loyd experienced a true scoring trance and achieved the historic mark in just five minutes and 40 seconds.
Loyd’s 22 points came on 8 of 9 shots, including his four 3s, and he dished out three assists to finish with a total of 37 points. The guard tied the record of Mercury’s Hispanic guard Diana Taurasi, who missed this game with an injury, set in 2006 by points in a quarter and tied by Brittney Sykes in 2019 with the highest scoring in a quarter. It is the highest points scoring by a WNBA player in the first quarter.