'Absolutely fearless'

An hour after USC's win over Baylor in the Sweet 16, Watkins stood by her locker in Portland's Moda Center, her ears perking up at the beginning of a question about Forbes.

“It feels like every time you guys need a bucket ...”

“She's there,” Watkins interjected, smiling, finishing the statement herself.

And Forbes did it in style, across a run dancing through the Pac-12 Tournament and deep into March. Her jumper was a backbreaker, motoring down the floor for off-thebounce 3-pointers in transition that had an incredibly high bucket-followed-bytimeout ratio. She relished those looks — “I really do think that's my highest-percentage three-point shot,” she murmured Sunday – and she let crowds know it, through a parade in March.

Fourth quarter, in that Sweet 16 win over Baylor: a pull-up three to give USC a 59-57 lead, screaming “Let's go” at the crowd in Portland.

Fourth quarter, in the Elite Eight loss to UConn, the final game of her collegiate career: a three to tie it 59-59, grinning and walking slowly back to her bench like the Terminator.

“She's like a breath of fresh air,” Watkins said. “When you're a hooper, you know — Kenzie's just a dog, and I love that about her. When you need a bucket, she's going to be the one to get it.”

These shots were the product of constant repetition, of daily morning shooting drills. They were the product, too, of pure self-belief, of having no shame in taking a risk and missing and coming back down to launch another one.

“She is absolutely fearless,” Moore said of Forbes, a Crimson team captain in her second season. “She

doesn't think about, like, you know, tie game, need a big bucket — what's the downfall of taking this shot? She just thinks about the positive, and that says a lot about her and how she operates.”

“Like, she doesn't think about not getting into Harvard,” Moore continued. “All she thinks about is getting in, and what that journey looks like on the other side.”

Her journey on the court is over, as Forbes confirmed simply after the UConn loss, when asked if she'd petition for another year of eligibility: “I'm done.”

Her future is just beginning. Gottlieb has stated multiple times she believes Forbes is a WNBA-caliber player, but also has complete faith Forbes — again, an analytics junkie — will be in a basketball team's front office someday. Maybe that starts now. Maybe later.

But whatever she wants, she'll chase, because she's done it before.

“She speaks things into existence,” Moore said. “She sees things before they even happen.”