LOS ANGELES — Jada Williams was the pest who wouldn’t leave, the nagging fly in JuJu Watkins’ ear, buzzing and hovering and visibly frustrating one of the best scorers in the nation.
Williams had seen, firsthand, the devastation Watkins could bring, the two meetings as seniors last year when Williams’ La Jolla Country Day team fell in a heavyweight prep matchup to Watkins and Sierra Canyon. And now-Arizona freshman Williams operated on Monday night as the head of a string of Wildcat defenders shadowing Watkins in the halfcourt, never letting the 6-foot-2 threat out of her sight, keeping one point of contact to Watkins at all times and visibly annoying the USC freshman.
They threw the entire toolkit at Watkins and USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb, part of a rotating array of Pac-12 defenses, each with its own unique directive on containing a player who came into the night averaging 37 points across her last three games. Williams face-guarded Watkins, and multiple Wildcats stepped into the lane when she was on the perimeter, visibly daring any other USC shooter to beat them.
And they were beaten.
After USC’s victory over UCLA in mid-January, Gottlieb affectionately dubbed her group “JuJu and the Nerds,” a slew of Ivy League transfers supporting Watkins’ heliocentric efforts in USC’s offense. Those nerds, though, pack a mighty punch – and Kayla Padilla, Kaitlyn Davis and McKenzie Forbes stole the spotlight in an 81-64 victory over Arizona (12-12 overall, 4-8 Pac-12) at the Galen Center, a massive step in conference play for a 10th-ranked USC team (18-4, 8-4) that is continuing to show it can win in a variety of ways.
“JuJu is so spectacular that people are going to come with all kinds of game plans, right,” Gottlieb said postgame. “And I think we’re showing that she’s hard to stop from scoring, but we also have other players that are super dangerous.”
In the second quarter, with Arizona taking a four-point lead and wholly content to let USC swing the ball on the perimeter to anyone not named Watkins, Penn transfer Padilla drained back-to-back 3-pointers – followed immediately by one from Forbes to give USC a lead it would never relinquish. And in the third quarter, Davis’ energy gave the Trojans a massive lift, a do-the-dirty-work forward getting some shine.
Less than a minute into the frame, she faced up for a smooth lefty jumper. On Arizona’s next possession down, she skied for an incredible anticipatory steal, dropping it off to a driving Watkins to draw a foul. And a few seconds later, she snatched a wayward layup from Watkins and kicked to Padilla for the senior’s fourth 3-pointer of the night, a 7-0 swing created almost entirely by Davis
“We can’t beat anyone in this league without being a multiple-effort team,” Gottlieb said, “and she’s like the queen of multiple-effort.”
Watkins finished with 32 points, but she shot 9 for 23 from the field and committed seven turnovers, clearly bothered at times by the Wildcats’ defensive alignment. Padilla’s 15 points (all from 3-point range) and seven assists, then, were sorely needed, the senior continuing to hit massive shots and control the game for USC in massive moments. After the game, she received a hearty embrace from Cheryl Miller, the USC great pulling Padilla close and whispering encouragement into her ear.
“Never would I have thought last year, I would have been in the position to play a big Monday game, to get a hug from Cheryl Miller,” Padilla said postgame, eyes wide and awestruck.
After a quiet first half, inside presence Rayah Marshall got going in the fourth quarter to finish with 12 points and 10 rebounds, and Forbes added three triples as USC won its fourth straight.
FACTS AND FIGURES
Watkins scored nine points in the third when the Trojans outscored the Wildcats 23-11 to take a 60-44 lead after leading by two early in the period. … She made all 12 of her free throws and also had seven rebounds and four assists in a game-high 38 minutes. … It was Watkins’ ninth 30-point game of the season, breaking the program record of eight set by Cherie Nelson in 1988-89. … The Trojans were outrebounded 17-11 by the conference’s worst rebounding team in the first half before asserting themselves after halftime. They finished with a 34-29 edge on the boards.