The USC Trojans used a six-player rotation in a double-overtime game against the Arizona Wildcats on Sunday afternoon. Two other players joined the game late but played a combined eight minutes, hardly anything in a marathon such as this one. The other 242 minutes were shouldered by just six players. That’s a lot of heavy lifting.
Destiny Littleton and Kadi Sissoko played all 50 minutes. Rayah Marshall played 48. Okako Adika played 44. That left one more spot on the floor where USC needed extended minutes. With Kayla Williams ineffective (zero points in 22 minutes played), Lindsay Gottlieb turned to Rokia Doumbia, a transfer from Purdue who had not scored more than five points in any previous USC game this season.
Doumbia, when given a chance to play this season, generally played 10 to 12 minutes per game. However, she played in just over half of USC’s games. She did not play on the Washington road trip a few weeks ago. She did not play in the upset over Stanford on Jan. 15.
In the first three and a half weeks of January, she didn’t play much: 10 minutes against Oregon on New Year’s Day, four versus Cal on Jan. 13. She played 10 to 13 minutes against Utah, Colorado, and Arizona State leading into Sunday’s game against Arizona.
No one was expecting Doumbia to play 28 minutes. She probably didn’t expect it herself. However, when given a big workload after being an occasional 12-minute player for the first three months of the season, Doumbia was certainly fresh and rested. She certainly wasn’t overextended.
That fact benefited her and USC.
Doumbia broke out with a 17-point performance which was not just impressive, but also efficient. Doumbia made all six field goal attempts and each of her two 3-pointers. She made 3 of 4 free throws and gave the Trojans several important baskets down the stretch.
If Lindsay Gottlieb wasn’t fully sure Doumbia could be a major contributor at the offensive end of the floor, this game should put those concerns to rest. Doumbia gives USC an added weapon heading into the middle of February and the final push toward an NCAA Tournament berth.
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