On Tuesday, five days before a momentous, final Pac-12 showdown with Stanford, JuJu Watkins provided a simple insight into her worldview: the game of basketball is about who can adapt the fastest. For months, in a dazzling freshman season, it had been Watkins who’d adjusted, approaching a new scheme designed to slow her. Except it was Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer who adjusted to her on Sunday afternoon in the Pac-12 championship, throwing a trap at Watkins off every ball-screen, unwilling to repeat an earlier February outcome where Watkins had authored a 51-point Renaissance painting in Stanford’s gym.

And Watkins was stymied, a chance to single-handedly lead USC (25-5) to the final true Pac-12 title crumbling before her. She scored just 9 points on 2-of-15 shooting, going without a field goal in the first half, trudging to the bench after one sub in the second half and slumping her head between her legs.

An entire program picked her up, in a resounding statement of a 74-61 win over Stanford (28-4), dethroning the conference’s gold standard in the final game in the conference’s as-presently-constructed history.

It started with Forbes, answering the bat signal as Watkins was relegated to the shadows, calling her own number and making tough shot after tough shot in a 26-point masterpiece. It continued with Rayah Marshall, the unflappable big battling for 30 minutes against a dominant Stanford frontcourt in a 10-point, 18-rebound scrap. It ended in sheer jubilation in Vegas, Forbes fittingly ending up dribbling out the clock as the buzzer sounded, shedding the veil of unflappability as she flung the ball over her head to the heavens.

At midcourt postgame, Forbes was presented with the Pac-12 Tournament MVP by ESPN’s Holly Rowe, breaking into tears when Rowe asked what it meant to have her family in attendance. Nearby cannons fired off a seemingly never-ending stream of red-and-gold confetti, rains of gratification pouring down on Forbes, a grad transfer from Harvard who’d seen about all there was to see in college basketball.

This was history for USC, a program en route to a likely no. 1 seed when Selection Sunday rolls around next week, a program that has risen back to the forefront of national collegiate women’s basketball. And history for Gottlieb, winning her first-ever Pac-12 tournament in the final year of its current iteration, choking up postgame when describing its significance. Her life came from this conference, her head-coaching career truly blossoming a decade ago at Cal, where she met her husband Patrick Martin.

“A lot of pride, in us winning the last one as a group,” Gottlieb said postgame. “Like I said — this group will be remembered forever for that.”

Her arrival three years ago set into motion an exponential program trajectory, culminating in one singular moment recruiting a transcendent freshman and surrounding her with a bevy of irreplaceable supporting acts. USC’s run to the Pac-12 title game hasn’t simply been Watkins arriving and Atlas-shouldering the program. Every single member of the roster, from the Ivy League transfers so affectionately dubbed “The Nerds” to the holdovers at the end of the bench, have bought completely into their roles under Gottlieb.

At times in USC’s semifinal win over UCLA Friday night, Watkins looked visibly upset and scrunched her eyebrows at Forbes’ decision-making, the never-short-on-confidence Harvard grad often waving off others to call for a ball-screen in a rough 5-of-20 shooting night. But Forbes’ gumption was irreplaceable in the first half. VanDerVeer and Stanford came out with a defense Gottlieb said postgame she’d “never seen,” often using Stanford’s Kiki Iriafen to trap any screen Watkins came off as a ball-handler.

So Forbes, saying postgame she knew Stanford would “come with something,” pressed the issue — and capitalized when she was suddenly afforded less defensive attention, all eyes on Watkins.

“I was kind of like, ‘Ooh, I have a little bit of space!’” Forbes said postgame, throwing her hands up at the dais.

On one early pull-up jumper, Forbes leaned to the floor and put her hand to her ankle in a too-small taunt. Off one turnover, USC thriving early on doubling down on Stanford stars Cameron Brink and Iriafen in the post, she dribbled up and swished a heat-check triple from beyond the top of the key, turning to the courtside seats on her way back down. They can’t — expletive — guard me, she barked, scoring 10 of USC’s first 18.

“I’m always chatty,” Forbes said postgame. “And when I’m making shots, it gets worse.”

Brink started to get going in the second quarter, dropping in 13 points by halftime in showing her full repertoire – face-ups, triples, bruising finishes on the inside. But reverse big Clarice Akunwafo, who has been a key all season in helping check some of the Pac-12’s best bigs in limited minutes, frustrated Brink in the post and feasted on the offensive glass. When Watkins exited, frustrated, backup guard Kayla Williams subbed in and immediately caught fire, hitting a couple of corner threes. Forbes capped off a brilliant half with a snaking, crane-legged floater before the break, bellowing to her bench as USC exited the floor with a nine-point lead.

Watkins notched her first points from the floor with 4:37 left in the third quarter, a layup, giving USC an 11-point lead. She didn’t score again the rest of the quarter, Stanford guarding her tough in the post, a hand in her face on every jumper.

Didn’t matter.

Marshall gave USC a lift at the start of the quarter, dropping in a couple layups, her energy a difference-maker all night in battling one of the best frontcourts in the nation. Forbes continued to bet on herself in Vegas and hit, canning a momentum-sealing triple to give USC a 16-point lead exactly seven seconds after she’d airballed a turnaround jumper. And with Stanford threatening at times in the fourth quarter, Forbes burst through on a breakaway and finished a layup with mere seconds remaining to close the win, roaring as she put her stamp on the final iteration of Pac-12 women’s basketball.

Guard Kayla Padilla added 13 points for the Trojans on 3-of-6 shooting from deep.

ocregister.com

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