against Penn State. Nelson, once USC’s all-time single-game points leader before JuJu Watkins shattered it last year at Stanford, was a valued guest. But tragedy seemed ready to get in the way.

But even as wildfires had claimed her home, and those of thousands of her Los Angeles neighbors, 98-year-old Irene wanted to see the Women of Troy. So she and Nelson came and sat courtside, filtering in Sunday night with thousands across Southern California who needed some “semblance of normalcy,” as fellow legend Cheryl Miller put it.

Nelson left Sunday night after a show, this USC women’s team (16-1, 6-0 Bigh Ten) pouring soul onto hardwood in a 95-73 win over Penn State.

Nelson left with a photo with Watkins, who played perhaps the most transcendent game of her one-and-a-half seasons of transcendence in a USC jersey, dropping 35 points on 13-of-15 shooting and making her first 11 shots from the floor.

And Cherie Nelson left, as many did, with a much-needed smile.

“We appreciate the opportunity to help the community in that way,” Gottlieb said postgame, “to give people two hours of joy.”

Watkins, as her assistant coach Beth Burns marvels, is an artist. She’s done her best work, throughout time, when she paints with joy. But joy, recently, has been hard to come by in the only home she’s ever known.

Outside the Galen Center’s walls on Sunday her city was suffering. Ash has drifted from the Los Angeles sky, and the Palisades and Eaton fires have rampaged. Her own family was forced to temporarily evacuate – all is fine now – as parents Bobby and Sari Watkins told the Southern California News Group.

But the some-6,000 who flocked into Galen Sunday night needed to “get away from all the craziness of the world right now,” as fan Jason Ito said. The people needed a reprieve. And Watkins gave them one.

She played likely the best all-around game of her USC career Sunday: a double-double of 35 points, 11 rebounds, 5 steals and 3 blocks. The true eye-catcher, though, was not the black ink itself but in the flourish of Watkins’ writing. She downshifted on a second-quarter hesitation with mouth agape, ducking through a thicket of Penn State arms for a pro-move finish to put USC up 13 early. She nabbed a steal to end the first half and took off with time waning, finishing through contact for a layup to cap a 15-0 Trojans run before the break, Watkins beaming at a jumbotron camera as Galen erupted and fellow star Kiki Iriafen lifted her in a bear-hug.

“I think our goal was to just, kind of put on a show, and entertain people for a couple of hours,” Watkins said, part of a thoughtful interview in which she thanked firefighters and pledged philanthropic help to Los Angeles. “And I think I kind of took pride in that as well, in my performance.”

It’s OK, Gottlieb implored to her team the past week, to focus on basketball. They were safe on Sunday, USC monitoring air quality inside and outside Galen as other games across Los Angeles were postponed or cancelled.

There were bigger things going on, yes. But Penn State still made the trip to Los Angeles. There was an opportunity, simply, to hone in on their craft in the time they had.