“I’m not going to wish you luck; just go get it done,” said USC legend Cheryl Miller in a pregame message played on the jumbotron at MGM Grand Garden Arena. 

The Trojans (26-5, 13-5 Pac-12) got it done. They bested No. 1-seeded Stanford (28-5, 15-3) 74-61 Sunday to earn their first Pac-12 Tournament championship since 2014, officially punching their ticket to the NCAA Tournament.

Despite being the No. 2 seed, the Trojans entered the game as the ultimate dark horse. Stanford boasts three NCAA titles, 15 of the 23 Pac-12 Tournament championships, the Pac-12 Player of the Year senior forward Cameron Brink and Tara VanDerveer, the winningest head coach in college basketball history.

“We were picked sixth in the conference,” said junior center Rayah Marshall in reference to the Pac-12 preseason coaches poll. “To come out and beat a top seed by 13 is just ‘Fight On.’”

Junior center Rayah Marshall began her USC career three years ago alongside Head Coach Lindsay Gottlieb and now, they’re both Pac-12 Tournament champions. (Bryce Dechert / Daily Trojan)

Refusing to be sacrificed at the altar of Pac-12 mythology, the Trojans proved all the doubters wrong.

Graduate guard McKenzie Forbes opened scoring with a triple in transition, and USC never trailed after that.

Eight minutes into the game, the Trojans already had a 10-point lead. 

Stanford soon found its rhythm, though. It finished the first frame strong, hitting its final five shots from the field. The Cardinal completed a 10-point run at the start of the second quarter, knotting the score at 22 apiece.

With the score tied, USC senior guard Kayla Williams came off the bench ready to respond. She nailed two back-to-back triples, tilting the momentum back in their favor in time to secure a 40-31 lead at halftime. 

Coming into this game, if you asked anybody what it’d take for the Trojans to be up by 9 points at intermission, they would’ve said two words: JuJu Watkins. 

It would only make sense, because in the Trojans’ latest victory over Stanford in February, the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year stunned the Cardinal with a 51-piece. But by halftime, the star freshman guard — who was struggling with a sprained ankle — scored just 2 points, each coming from the free-throw line.

“Tara Tara’d and came out with a defense that I have never seen,” said Head Coach Lindsay Gottlieb. “Again, you have to credit JuJu. There was not one, not two, not three, not four [but] five people around her because of the respect they have for her … [Watkins] is going to figure out the best way to win and these people up here stepped up as we know that they would.”

In fact, Watkins finished the game with a season-low 9 points on 13.3% shooting alongside three rebounds, one assist and six turnovers.

Freshman guard JuJu Watkins was named to the Pac-12 All-Tournament Team after posting 59 points and 21 rebounds over the Trojans’ three games. (Bryce Dechert / Daily Trojan)

With Watkins contained, the Trojans had to function as a unit.  

“We don’t win a championship today without being able to rely on everything that is truly our team,” Gottlieb said.

In the paint, Marshall battled two of the best post players in the nation — Brink and junior forward Kiki Iriafen — and she rose to the challenge. It looked as if Marshall had the ball on a string as she hauled down a game-high 18 rebounds in addition to her 10 points.

On offense, Forbes was the orchestrator. Whether she was barreling through a clogged driving lane or sliding the ball behind her back before sinking a fade-away, she wouldn’t let the Cardinal get ahead. Forbes led both teams in scoring with 26 points, earning her Pac-12 Tournament Most Outstanding Player.

Even with Brink living up to the Pac-12 Player of the Year title with 19 points and 10 rebounds, and Iriafen posting 18 points on seven rebounds, the Trojans’ confidence never wavered.

“No one looked rattled,” Gottlieb said. “We had no pressure on us. We played with all the joy in the world but the urgency of what a championship game feels like, and I think that was to our advantage.”

To overcome strong performances from Brink and Iriafen, USC had players like graduate guard Kayla Padilla eliminate the production of the Cardinal’s supporting cast. Padilla also shot 50% on 3-poitnters.

“I have never had such a selfless teammate in my life,” Forbes said. “[To] frickin’ chase [Stanford graduate guard] Hannah Jump around for 40 minutes, chase [UCLA sophomore guard] Londynn Jones around for 40 minutes, and after 15 minutes of that maybe get one shot in the corner, and she’s going to sink it every time … I think it’s incredible.”

Head Coach Lindsay Gottlieb was resolute in her determination to turn USC — a formerly sub-.500 team that hadn’t won a Pac-12 title since 2014 — into a nationally recognized program. Sunday afternoon, Gottlieb summited the ladder at the Pac-12 Tournament to cut down the hoop. (Bryce Dechert / Daily Trojan)

With the Trojans’ well-rounded victory, the Pac-12 has come full-circle. USC won the first ever Pac-12 title in 1986-87 and now it is the rightful holder of the final Pac-12 Tournament title.

“I want to say how much gratitude I have for the Pac-12 Conference … It’s meant almost everything in my personal life,” Gottlieb said, recalling how she met her husband while coaching at UC Berkeley. “I don’t know that I’d be in coaching if it wasn’t for Tara [VanDerveer] and people like her who did it when there was no money and none of this. They paved the way for us.”

The Pac-12 Tournament may be over, but the Trojans still have more confetti to chase. USC is expected to host its first game of the NCAA March Madness Tournament at Galen Center March 22.