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USC women’s basketball lands two grad transfers in the portal

matt zemek
·2 min read

If you did not follow USC women’s basketball very closely before this past season, it’s more than understandable. USC had not been relevant over the past decade. The Trojans made only one NCAA Tournament appearance in that period of time. However, things are changing under coach Lindsay Gottlieb.

The Trojans returned to the NCAA Tournament this year for the first time since 2014. They have top-ranked recruit Juju Watkins coming into the program. Gottlieb, with three regular rotation players leaving the program, has to fill roster spots. Destiny Littleton, Okako Adika, and Kadi Sissoko moved on to the pros. Gottlieb needed to put quality players around returning defensive star Rayah Marshall and Watkins, the centerpiece of the program.

Gottlieb took a few big steps forward over the past few days, adding two graduate transfers in the portal, both from Ivy League schools.

McKenzie Forbes was recruited by Gottlieb at California several years ago, when Gottlieb was still coaching in Berkeley with the Golden Bears. Gottlieb went to the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers. Forbes went to Harvard. Now the two are reunited in Los Angeles. Forbes should blend in well at USC, given that she knows how Gottlieb coaches the game.

Kayla Padilla is a transfer from Penn, but she grew up in Los Angeles and played high school ball at Bishop Montgomery. She gives USC the 3-point shooting it desperately needs.

Gottlieb is very careful and intentional in building a roster — not that other coaches aren’t, but Gottlieb has a very precise architecture for getting a team to come together.

She told reporters in March, after the loss to South Dakota State in the NCAA Tournament, that she focuses on selling a vision and a blueprint to players first. Then comes the actual process of coaching a player how to play. That insight tells us Forbes and Padilla are sold on Gottlieb’s vision.

Their performance should flow from their belief in Gottlieb’s roadmap for success.

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Story originally appeared on Trojans Wire