Clarice Akunwafo gives USC huge lift vs Lauren Betts and UCLA

The casual basketball fan is primarily concerned with how many points a player scores. When JuJu Watkins isn’t scoring lots of points or making many shots, it is easy for a lot of casual observers to think a coach isn’t coaching well, or a team isn’t performing well. One of the great misconceptions casual fans have is that points are the main measurement of how well a player is producing. In basketball, a player can have a significant affect on a game and its outcome without scoring a single point. One great example from the past decade of NBA basketball is Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors. His low-post defense, rebounding, passing, and overall effort can help the Warriors win. Steph Curry and others can score. Draymond can do the gruntwork so Steph gets the glory. For USC women’s basketball, that player is sometimes Clarice Akunwafo, the backup center who will — on occasion — give a rest to starter Rayah Marshall.

In Thursday’s game against UCLA, Marshall — who was battling both hamstring and back problems — played only 14 minutes. She is not 100-percent healthy. Clarice Akunwafo needed to come off the bench and help USC women’s basketball contain UCLA’s superstar, National Player of the Year contender Lauren Betts, in the low post. Lindsay Gottlieb needed to put the pieces together and make sure one of Marshall or Akunwafo was regularly defending UCLA’s best player:

“Gottlieb knew Clarice Akunwafo would be needed against UCLA center Lauren Betts. It’s important for USC to throw both Akunwafo and Rayah Marshall at Betts, so that each player is physically fresh and doesn’t have to carry the defensive workload herself. By using the two bigs, USC has 10 fouls to give against Betts, a National Player of the Year candidate and likely finalist. Against UCLA on Thursday, USC used eight of those 10 fouls and, ultimately, did a solid job on Betts. UCLA’s best player was good — 18 points, 13 rebounds — but not overwhelming. She finished 5 of 13 from the field and struggled to score alongside the rest of the Bruins in the fourth quarter. Gottlieb’s rotation of bigs worked.”

Let’s talk more about Clarice Akunwafo and offer the reactions from people in the know about this key X-factor for USC women’s basketball:

Our USC women’s basketball analyst called it on our podcast

Coaches know the real score

Clarice Akunwafo’s point total against UCLA

Guess how many points Akunwafo scored against UCLA.

We’ll wait.

Okay, here’s the answer: zero points.

One of USC’s most important players didn’t score a point. JuJu Watkins handled the scoring with 38. Akunwafo was not on the floor to score. She was there to contain Betts, which she did. Mission accomplished. This is exactly what we mean when we use the term “role player” in basketball. Role players don’t have to do everything, just one or two things. Clarice Akunwafo played her role to perfection.

UCLA fans were not happy with Clarice Akunwafo (which meant she did a great job)

Full press conference remarks

Team defense, not just one player

Memorable

USC D stepped forward

This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: Clarice Akunwafo’s defense was a central reason USC beat UCLA