Stanford falls to USC In Pac-12 Tournament Final despite quiet showing from Juju Watkins

If you had told any Stanford fan that the No. 2 Cardinal was able to hold USC's star freshman Juju Watkins to just nine points, you would have assumed Stanford won in blowout fashion.

The only time these two teams in the regular season, Watkins torched Stanford for 51 points. She made 14 of the team's 21 shots, and Stanford had no answer for her. On Sunday, Watkins went 2-of-15 and also had six turnovers as Stanford's defense on her was relentless. Something that USC head coach Lindsey Gottlieb was astounded by after the game.

"Tara Tara’d and came out with a defense that I have never seen. You have to credit JuJu that there was not one, not two, not three, not four, five people around her because of the respect they have for,” Gottlieb said. “We found a way because we know that we’re a true team, and I think you can’t account for the type of winner that she is and she’s going to figure out the best way to win. These people up here stepped up as we know that they would. We out-rebounded them by 20, we gave up six offensive rebounds only to Stanford. That’s wild.”

Unfortunately for the Cardinal, they ended up getting torched by Harvard transfer  McKenzie Forbes who scored a game-high 26 points, and were outrebounded by 20 boards. USC went on to win 74-61, as after Stanford took an early 6-3 lead, the Trojans took the lead and never turned back.

Stanford vs USC Pac-12 Tournament Final

Kirby Lee

Outside of Forbes, the Cardinal also struggled to slow down Penn transfer Kayla Padilla who added 13 points. On the boards, USC's Rayah Marshall dominated, grabbing 18 rebounds. 

For Stanford, Cameron Brink had 19 points on 7-of-16 shooting with 10 rebounds to go with it. Kiki Iriafen added 18 points and seven boards, but outside of their two star forwards the offense was stagnant. Elena Bosgana was third on the team in points with nine, while Hannah Jump who was hot against Oregon State and Talana Lepolo combined for just six points.

With the loss, the Cardinal fell to No. 4 in the AP Poll and there may be a chance that this game was the difference between them being a No. 1 seed and No. 2 seed in the upcoming NCAA Tournament.