LOS ANGELES – When they needed her, she was their source of fire, Kennedy Smith’s eyes popping and her motor churning through the offensive fog that had befallen the Galen Center.
She was there, when no shot by a Trojan fell for five minutes against Ohio State, hitting a first-quarter wing three to break the seal. She was there, dumping a pass into Kiki Iriafen for a 10-point lead late in the first half, a freshman with no fear clapping her hands at – not with – her teammates on their way back to the bench. She was there quietly for former high school rival JuJu Watkins in the third quarter, offering a hand around the back and a whisper amid a superstar slump that’s only dug deeper.
And she was there, loudly, to put a titanic matchup away for USC in the fourth quarter Saturday. As a 14-point lead dangled and another jumper clanked off iron, Smith shoved her backside into an Ohio State defender, snaring a rebound and finishing an and-one putback with a can’t-teach-that roar.
She took just six shots, on Saturday night. And yet she dominated an 84-63 USC win, from tip to buzzer, against the eighth-ranked team in the nation. Smith hit all three of her threes, and grabbed 13 rebounds, and dished out five assists – and was the head of the snake of a USC defense that held Ohio State to just 29% shooting.
“She gets everybody around her confident,” assistant coach Beth Burns said of Smith, back in late-December.
And the confidence was needed, on Saturday, amid a brutal offensive start that saw Watkins flustered like perhaps never before.
With a few seconds remaining in the first quarter, she caught the ball on the wing, held it for a few seconds – and then passively dropped the ball and strolled away as the buzzer sounded.
With a few seconds remaining in the second quarter, she flung her dribble up the hardwood in a race against the clock – and then stumbled and lost control as the buzzer sounded.
In both circumstances, the outcome was rather shockingly the same: Watkins, the woman with the freedom to create anything she wanted under the lights of Galen, did not take a shot when a shot was available to take.
It bookended a truly strange first half for USC, flexing their rebounding muscles on Ohio State but occasionally looking like all five players were operating under their own individual definitions of the game of basketball. Two traveling calls on Kiki Iriafen negated two first-quarter layups, and she simply dribbled the ball out of bounds on another possession. Center Rayah Marshall flung one second-quarter outlet past Watkins and directly into the hands of an Ohio State defender.
And Watkins played with an alarming combination of passivity and indecision, shying largely away from her patented bull-in-china-shop transition drives, her handle loose and her jumper a tick off. At the start of the second quarter, Gottlieb, who normally spends her time strolling up and down near the scorer’s table, sat next to Watkins on the bench. The head coach waved her hands, frantically, in a clear effort to explain and instruct.
Watkins simply stared, blankly, rubbing the side of her face.
But this was a USC team (21-2, 11-1 Big Ten) that can win without making threes, as Gottlieb said in late January. Scratch that – they can win without making shots, in general. There was enough length, and heart, and grit, to carry their roster for 40 minutes against Ohio State, and offensive imbalance was overpowered by sheer power for much of the night, the Trojans outrebounding Ohio State 62-30 and holding the Buckeyes.
All-world big Iriafen, who finished with 24 points and 13 rebounds despite a the early turnovers, dropped in USC’s first six points of the second half after the Trojans took an eight-point lead in the second half. Steady center Rayah Marshall was tremendous, finishing two third-quarter putback layups and finishing with 10 points and four blocks. And Watkins, her face warping and twisting with every blow she absorbed on her drive through the lane, finished a couple tough layups at the end of the third quarter to break a field-goal drought.
And despite a 5-of-21 ledger, with Watkins shooting just 31% in her last four games, she unlocked her shot in the fourth quarter, splashing a deep three with a minute left to lock up USC’s fifth ranked win of the year.