SPOKANE, Wash. — The tenacious freshman stared ahead blankly, her eyes welling with tears, the losing USC locker room silent around her.
Kennedy Smith gave everything she had in the wake of JuJu Watkins’ injury. She helped guide USC past Kansas State in the Sweet 16, pacing the team in scoring. And in the Elite Eight, the Trojans had entrusted her, their best on-ball defender, with chasing Paige Bueckers, the Connecticut star and likely No. 1 pick in the WNBA draft.
But it wasn’t enough. Not without Watkins. And in the last gasps of a season that once seemed destined for something special, that was a particularly difficult pill for Smith and her teammates to swallow. Soon enough, they knew, their team would look totally different. Kiki Iriafen, after an All-American season at USC, is off to the WNBA. Rayah Marshall, after four memorable years, is following Iriafen, while Talia von Oelhoffen, their starting point guard, and Clarice Akunwafo, their defensive stalwart off the bench, exhausted their eligibility.
Many questions about the path forward for USC are still to be answered. Not the least of which is whether Watkins sits out all of next season after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee. But hidden beneath the heartbreak of a tournament run cut short is hope for a future with Smith and her fellow freshmen holding down the fort until Watkins is healthy enough to return.
“The freshmen, their performance … was unbelievable,” von Oelhoffen said Monday night. “A preview of what’s to come in the next few years.”
The trio of guards Smith, Avery Howell and Kayleigh Heckel certainly gave every reason this March to believe they’re bound for bigger roles next season. Howell already had emerged as a vocal leader while leading the Trojans in three-point shooting (40%). Heckel served as a spark plug off the bench. And Smith established herself as an elite defender who could score in bunches if the game called for it.
Smith’s high school coach, Stan Delus, knows she’s capable of much more. He’d seen it in her at Etiwanda High and he expects to see it again next season at USC.
“She can score in so many more ways than she shows at USC right now,” Delus told The Times last month.
How much more Smith and her fellow freshmen will be asked to shoulder that scoring load depends on what happens in the coming weeks. With Watkins out for the foreseeable future, the Trojans are expected to be active in the transfer portal.
Notre Dame’s Olivia Miles, expected to be the top point-guard prospects in the WNBA draft, stunned the basketball world this week by entering the portal instead. Ta’Niya Latson, who led the nation in scoring this season at Florida State, also is in search of a new team. Alongside Watkins, either would make the Trojans’ backcourt arguably the most dynamic in women’s college basketball.
But USC’s most glaring needs are in the frontcourt, where Iriafen and Marshall won’t be easily replaced. USC is slated to bring back just one forward with playing experience — 6-foot-3 freshman Vivian Iwuchukwu, and she averaged only 2.4 points and 1.6 rebounds in 18 games.
Wisconsin’s Serah Williams, the Big Ten defensive player of the year in 2024, will be the presumptive top option among forwards in the portal after she averaged 19.2 points, 9.8 rebounds, and 2.3 blocks. Beyond her the pickings were pretty slim among rim-protecting bigs in the portal.
One dynamic player is already set to join the Trojans. Jazzy Davidson, the No. 3 overall high school prospect in the 2025 graduating class, will give the Trojans another promising young option on the wing. How big of a role she’ll play right away remains to be seen. But as she’s proven the last two seasons, Gottlieb has no problem putting freshmen in critical positions.
“Freshmen coming into a program like ours … it’s not, you know, learn on the fly, and, we’ll give you a year or two to figure out how to win,” Gottlieb said. “They had to know how to fit into a winning team right away.”
That fit was never in doubt for USC’s freshmen this March. The question now, as the Trojans trudge ahead without Watkins, is where USC might be next March, with Smith, Howell and Heckel presumably leading the way.
“They’re winners,” Gottlieb said Monday night, “and I think that’s what they showed at this stage. And I just know they’re going to keep getting better, which is unbelievable.”
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