PORTLAND, Ore. — The miracle ended, here, with their agent of chaos away from the chaos.
JuJu Watkins’ defensive instincts as a freshman, assistant coach Beth Burns said back in the good ol’ days of February and USC’s run through the Pac-12, were remarkable. Watching, defensively, like a cat. Sitting, and pouncing.
Except here, in front of this hostile crowd with a season slipping away, Watkins couldn’t pounce. She stood away from plays, moored in an ocean of blue jerseys, away from the matchup countless households had tuned in to see. And her contemporary, Paige Bueckers, the UConn junior hunting for a national championship and eliminating any resistance in her path, shredded any USC jersey in front of her in an 80-73 win.
As Bueckers made a statement on a national stage, returning from an ACL injury this scintillating junior season to tug a heavily-injured UConn team to the Final Four, Watkins wasn’t her primary defender. For 40 minutes, McKenzie Forbes checked her – at times to success. But Bueckers closed out USC with a flurry of buckets in the fourth quarter of a 28-point-performance, Watkins watching helplessly, the freshman trudging off after the final buzzer sounded with jersey over her eyes.
With four minutes left, Bueckers caught an inbound from the baseline, turned and fired for a jumper over Forbes and a three-point lead – and Watkins wasn’t there.
Thirty seconds later, she drained a 3-pointer, pushing UConn’s lead to six – and Watkins wasn’t there.
Watkins was everywhere else in the fourth quarter, as she has been all season, dropping 29 points on the night and motoring for layups until the final seconds ticked away. But USC’s best season in 30 years, a program revitalization under Watkins and Coach Lindsay Gottlieb, came to rest as Bueckers and UConn bellowed in a mob after the buzzer – and Watkins trudged off the hardwood for the last time as a freshman, wiping her jersey across her eyes.
On Sunday morning, Gottlieb had a brief conversation with Forbes, telling the senior that she and Watkins would split time on Bueckers. And when the starting lineups assembled for the tip-off Monday night, Forbes trotted over to stand next to Buecker, the two of them exchanging a few words, a slight deviation from the Watkins-Bueckers clash that the Moda Center – and countless households glued to their televisions – expected.
“When you tune in for JuJu, you see Kaitlyn Davis and Kayla Padilla, Rayah (Marshall), and Kenzie,” Gottlieb said on Sunday.
And the world saw Forbes, early. Saw her eyes steely, brow furrowed, attached at Bueckers’ hip. This was a woman who had gotten into Harvard as a transfer, a feat nearly dictated impossible by pure percentage points, a woman without fear. And she attacked early, draining a pull-up triple in transition, finishing a floater off glass through a body-bump and pumping her first in glee.
But as UConn coach Geno Auriemma said on Sunday, the Huskies had a problem USC might not have been able to solve. And Bueckers was a unique puzzle. As Forbes draped all over her, she back cut twice for a layup and a foul in the first quarter. After a Bueckers and-one basket late in the frame simply powering through the 5-foot-9 Kayla Padilla in a Padilla-Kayla Williams backcourt, Gottlieb visibly realized USC needed size on the court, subbing in Kaitlyn Davis; but UConn was activated.
Coming down in transition, Huskies freshman Qadence Samuels buried a triple, and Gottlieb called a timeout as Watkins trudged to the bench. Frustrated. She’d been guarded with homing beacons and defenders with claws, battered like a revolving door on one out-of-bounds play as she tried to come off a double-screen, two or three defenders trained on her every time she caught at the top of the key.
And then, out of a timeout and UConn holding all momentum, she held the ball at the top of the key. Surveying. Bueckers, finally, pressed up on her, staring intently. Watkins jabbed, once. And let fly.
Straight into the history books.
When her 3-point shot rang true, she had officially passed Tina Hutchinson’s 1984 NCAA record for most points by a freshman in a single season. In history. But this was a war, and there was no time for a reaction, Watkins coming back down after a free throw by UConn’s Aaliyah Edwards and sizing up Bueckers again at the top of the key. She went between her legs, twice, the artist trailing her brush on the hardwood’s canvas, stepping back and letting fly again for her second straight triple over Bueckers.
But the UConn junior wouldn’t be denied, coming right back down for a jumper, finishing the half with 15 as UConn and USC headed into the break knotted at 33. And as the Huskies’ guards continued to hound Watkins off-ball, Forbes’ best third-quarter efforts – dropping in a couple 3-pointers to cut away a slice of momentum – couldn’t save USC from Bueckers’ steady effort, the junior charging on one transition take and simply shredding Forbes on an up-and-under finish to bring UConn’s lead to 12.
But USC mounted a late flurry in the frame, cutting the lead to four as point guard Padilla – who had been 0 for 4 from deep on the night – hit a 3-pointer as the buzzer sounded, a contesting Bueckers throwing her head back in disgust.
And with Moda buzzing after a couple of Watkins layups to start the fourth quarter, the ball found Forbes – as it always seems to in the most crucial of moments – for a 3-pointer to tie. She beamed to the crowd off a timeout, gritting her bottom lip at her teammates, she and Watkins trading blows at a UConn lead that seemed impenetrable in the third.
But Bueckers was inevitable, and UConn closed USC out despite a stretch of six missed free throws late, Forbes extending hands in the shape of a heart to the USC fans as she walked off for the last time in her collegiate career.
More to come on this story.
