Kara Dunn held her right wrist aloft for an extra beat. Just to be sure.
It had been a while, by that point in the second quarter, since USC had seen a deep jumper drop. As Dunn lifted off from behind the arc against Portland on Tuesday, 19 of the Trojans’ previous 20 three-point attempts, going back to Saturday’s battle with South Carolina, had missed, a stretch of futility strange to a team that mostly scored at will a season ago.
But before any of those early concerns grew too glaring Tuesday night, Dunn watched as her jumper safely found the bottom of the net. Within a few minutes from there, USC found its offensive mojo again, bouncing back from Saturday’s South Carolina loss to beat Portland, 78-51.
It hasn’t been the smoothest ride for USC this season as it tries to fill the void left by injured superstar JuJu Watkins, who averaged 24 points last season.
Jazzy Davidson has done an admirable job stepping into that leading role early on. She led the way again Tuesday, stuffing the stat sheet with 19 points, seven rebounds, five assists and three steals.
The question through four games has been who might step up alongside the Trojans’ talented freshman. Londynn Jones scored 12 while Kennedy Smith overcame an inefficient start to score 13 on five-of-14 shooting.
There have been no such concerns this season about USC’s defense, which forced a stunning 29 turnovers. It was the most turnovers forced by the Trojans since last November, when they tallied 42 against Cal State Northridge.
It looked bleak through the first quarter Tuesday. USC opened the game one for seven from the field, with its offense looking out of sorts, and scored a meager 10 points in the first 10 minutes. Portland, fresh off an NCAA tournament invite last season, opened an early eight-point advantage and led for most of the first half.
Until Dunn’s three-pointer at the 5:42 mark of the second quarter, USC had hit just one shot outside of the paint.
But the mere sight of a long-distance jumper was apparently enough to jump-start things on that end. Davidson snagged a steal on the next possession, the third turnover of the quarter she’d turn into a breakaway lay-in. Kennedy Smith followed with a steal and a lay-in. Then, Jones pulled up from three-point range and sunk one.
By the end of the barrage, USC had turned an eight-point deficit at the start of the second quarter into a 13-point lead, just seven minutes later. It finished the half on a 24-5 run.
Davidson was the spark plug. She scored 14 on seven-of 10 shooting in the first half. The rest of the team was eight of 24 in that span.
Portland cut USC’s lead to just seven points midway through the third quarter. But the Trojans kicked into high gear again. A few minutes into the fourth, Smith hit a three-pointer. Then Jones followed with two more.
By that point, USC had buried Portland for good.
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