LAS VEGAS — As USC celebrated its Pac-12 tournament title, the first championship the program has won in a decade, there was some disbelief among its veteran core.
It wasn’t a surprise it had beaten Stanford 74-61, or that it had done so on a veritable off night from JuJu Watkins (9 points, her lone single-digit output of the season), or that it had taken down the titans of the Pac-12 in the process. Rather, this group couldn’t believe with whom they were commemorating this moment.
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For multiple seasons, McKenzie Forbes, Kaitlyn Davis and Kayla Padilla were the fiercest of rivals in the Ivy League. Twelve months after their individual dreams of winning a conference championship came up short for the final time as members of Harvard, Columbia and Penn, respectively, they accomplished that feat collectively.
They came to USC to win. It still doesn’t make it any less weird that they’re realizing their loftiest goals together.
“It’s just the greatest feeling in the world, and to do it with them, too, they’re such great teammates. I love playing with them,” Forbes said Sunday. “I never would have thought I would be hugging Kaitlyn Davis, holding the trophy with her last year at this time.”
Last year at this time, players around the country were making decisions about whether to exercise their additional COVID-19 years of eligibility. Ivy League players had an additional complication. There was the prospect of whether to stay in school at all, but then also where to play their graduate year of college basketball.
Although the Ivy Leaguers were all given the pandemic year bonus (deservedly so, since the league canceled its season altogether in 2020-21), they didn’t get an extra year of eligibility in the Ivy League. So if they wanted to continue playing basketball collegiately, it would have to be somewhere else.
For Forbes, the decision was obvious. Having begun her college career with Lindsay Gottlieb at California in 2018-19 before transferring to Harvard when Gottlieb left for the Cleveland Cavaliers, she knew she would reunite with her first coach in Los Angeles. Her official visit ended up happening at the same time as Padilla’s, and she spent the entire time making her recruiting pitch to the seventh-leading scorer in Penn history. The first time Forbes played against Padilla, the then-Quakers guard scored the first 11 points for her team; Forbes paid close attention ever since.
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“I always had a lot of respect for her game and was super excited about the prospect of playing with her,” Forbes said. “I knew going into it that I was going to commit. So I was kind of trying to rile her up.”
Forbes’ task wouldn’t be all that challenging. Padilla was already drawn to USC by the prospect of playing at home. She even played high school basketball with fellow Trojans graduate student Kayla Williams. Plus, Padilla would get to play alongside a generational talent like Watkins. The cherry on top was the presence of another Ivy League product — but not Forbes. Instead, it was playing for Gottlieb, the Brown graduate, that convinced Padilla she wanted to be a Trojan.
“One, she has such an extensive and respected resume, coming from the NBA, coaching women’s (basketball) for a long time, so I just knew she knew the game and knew how I could fit into this team,” Padilla said. “Second, she knows Ivy League basketball, she went to Brown. So I think that was an extra additional advantage because I feel like a lot of people underestimate the Ivy League. So to have the perspective of her knowing what it’s like to come from that conference stepping into a Power 5 conference role, I knew she’d understand that piece of it.”
Davis’ visit came shortly afterward, and soon, all three “nerds” — in Gottlieb’s parlance — were on board. After playing major roles at their previous programs, they knew they’d have to adapt to their new situations and willingly took those steps back.
McKenzie Forbes in a 85-77 win @ Long Beach State : Career-high 36 points (10-25 shooting, 3-11 from 3 & 13-16 from the FT line), 7 rebounds & 4 assists in 38 minutes pic.twitter.com/bX3nApOilq
— Lee Harvey (@MusikFan4Life) December 22, 2023
Even so, certain situations have pushed them into the limelight. The flu hit the team hard in December, and Watkins and Rayah Marshall sat out against Long Beach State. Forbes, under the weather herself, scored a career-best 36 points, earning 18 trips to the foul line, as USC won by 8 on the road. Padilla chipped in 16 in that victory and became an absolute flamethrower when the calendar turned, shooting 50 percent from 3-point range in conference play. That was around the same time Davis got healthy, and she had the second-best on-off differential (plus-17.9 points per 100 possessions) for USC during the Pac-12 schedule.
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The trio took over in the Trojans’ double-overtime win at Arizona on Feb. 29. After Watkins fouled out, USC tied the game in regulation on what Gottlieb now calls the “Ivy special.” Davis got the rebound on her own missed free throw with the Trojans down 3 and fed Padilla for the tying shot. They scored 17 of the Trojans’ 24 points in the extra sessions as they held on for the win.
The Arizona win was the nerds’ shining moment of the season, until this weekend. On Friday against UCLA, USC faced arguably its toughest battle of the season, and the Ivies were at the center of the action. Davis grabbed 16 rebounds despite being 6 inches shorter than Lauren Betts and added three steals and two blocks. Forbes was the second-leading scorer and drew four fouls to help put the Bruin guards in foul trouble. Padilla chased UCLA’s best 3-point shooter Londynn Jones around for 38 minutes, enveloping her so that Jones shot 1-of-11 from the field and missed all eight 3-point attempts. Padilla even had a chase-down block on Jones at the end of regulation to keep the game tied.
KD rebound.
Forbes triple.
KD block.Huge series of plays by the nerds in OT. pic.twitter.com/BOHjKLD9u7
— USC Women's Basketball (@USCWBB) March 9, 2024
They even replicated the Ivy Special at the end of overtime, except this time, after the pass from Davis, Padilla swung the ball to Forbes for the triple.
They took it to another level against Stanford. With Watkins less than her best, though still drawing a defender at all times and essentially allowing her teammates to play four-on-four in the half court, the veterans saved the day. Forbes was cash from the get-go, scoring 10 points in the first quarter as USC took the lead for good, eventually scoring a game-high 26 and earning most outstanding player honors for the tournament. Davis was the Trojans’ best distributor. She had a game-high five assists without even dribbling that many times, simply using her ability to read the floor to redirect the rock to the optimal location.
First off, what a save by Rayah Marshall
Secondly
MCKENZIE FORBES pic.twitter.com/HJx1BcN41G
— Mark Schindler (@MG_Schindler) March 10, 2024
Padilla had to guard Hannah Jump, Stanford’s best perimeter threat who scored 20 in the Cardinal’s semifinal win. Just like she did with Jones, Padilla locked her up, limiting Jump to one 3-pointer that fortuitously banked in. Meanwhile, Padilla drained three triples of her own, maintaining her 50 percent average in the process.
“While we have selfless people who play roles, they’re hoopers,” Gottlieb said. “When it’s their turn to step up, they step up like an All-American.”
Although the Trojans may be inexperienced when it comes to playing together, considering four of their starters are in their first year at USC, the Ivies aren’t new to college basketball. They brought their own experience to Southern California. They’ve been in high-level games for years with the burden of carrying their teams, and they’ve been through the heartbreak of defeat.
Were it not for the COVID year, it’s possible that heartbreak would have been the lasting memory of their college careers — scaling the mountain but not quite reaching the summit. Instead, fate brought the one-time adversaries together.
“None of us have won an Ivy League tournament championship. And to be able to do it here, all three of us together, I mean, you couldn’t have written this better,” Forbes said. “Just super grateful that we had this experience together and they made the transition a lot easier for me.”
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“This time last year, we were at the (Ivy League) tournament, and I was wondering if I was ever going to go dancing in my life,” Padilla said. “I’m now going dancing and winning a Pac-12 championship and doing it with competitors turned friends, and it’s been a full-circle moment.”
When Gottlieb brought three Ivy transfers into USC’s program this offseason, the goal was for them to support Watkins’ development, to have her back.
In the biggest moment of their season, the Ivies carried Watkins. Because of it, they accomplished something together that they never could do individually. And they’re not done yet.
(Top photo of McKenzie Forbes, left, and Kayla Padilla: Kirby Lee / USA Today)