If you followed USC women’s basketball this past season, you know that Jazzy Davidson and Kara Dunn were the Trojans’ leading scorers. Kennedy Smith’s numbers usually didn’t jump off the stat sheet. Yet, if you follow this program, you also know Kennedy Smith is not a box score player. Translated: Her value and importance go far beyond numbers and raw statistical averages.
USC often went into games knowing that if defenses took away one of Jazzy Davidson or Kara Dunn, the other of the two would have great chances to score and create offense. That’s one reason Kennedy Smith didn’t dominate at the offensive end of the floor for the Trojans. Yet, the reality of Smith’s place on this team in 2026 is a lot more layered and complicated than that.
Kennedy Smith — as USC women’s basketball analyst Cece Clay often says — is the “connector” of this offense. She will make the unselfish pass, set screens, and perform the non-box-score-based tasks which create fluid, crisp halfcourt possessions. She will pick her spots on offense but is not the elite perimeter shooter who should be looking to launch every time she has the ball. Jazzy and Kara were better options in that regard this season. Smith showed good discipline in not taking too many shots, especially 3-pointers, on most occasions. She reminds us that basketball impact goes far beyond points scored.
The 2026 season was a headache and challenge for Kennedy Smith for a lot of reasons. This next one is the most underappreciated: Smith was on an island relative to the other players on the roster, in the sense that she was the only main player on the USC team who had a year of experience in Lindsay Gottlieb’s system.
Jazzy was a freshman. Kara was a transfer. The frontcourt was transfer-based or recruit-based. Londynn Jones was a transfer. Malia Samuels was a returning player but is never looked to as a primary scorer. Kennedy Smith was on her own. She knew the nuances of the USC offense, but virtually no one else on the team did entering the season in November. Not having JuJu Watkins on the floor severely limited not only what the team could achieve, but what Kennedy herself could do on offense.
Yes, Kennedy Smith’s defense and rebounding are world-class. She is arguably the best defensive player in women’s basketball. Yet, the massive churn on the USC roster this past season left Kennedy Smith in a virtually impossible position. She had to exist within an offense Jazzy Davidson and Kara Dunn were learning how to play. She had to be an unselfish teammate yet find ways to be a leader and mentor on a roster which was largely new to Gottlieb’s scheme and concepts.
Kennedy Smith endured a more difficult season than just about anyone in women’s college basketball. That USC was able to make the NCAA Tournament and win a March Madness game shows how well she adjusted to a ton of difficult, complicated circumstances.
This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: Kennedy Smith’s 2026 USC season was greatly underappreciated
Reporting by Matt Zemek, Trojans Wire / Trojans Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
