LOS ANGELES — A few days before Cherie Nelson was set to be honored on the hardwood at the Galen Center, her mother, Irene, lost her home. It once sat at the intersection of Fair Oaks and Pine avenues in Altadena.

That was before the nightmare.

It was probably “up in the air,” as USC women’s basketball coach Lindsay Gottlieb put it, if Nelson was going to come Sunday night. Alumni were driving in from parts of Southern California, and flying in from parts of the United States, for a nod to the program’s long history at halftime of USC’s game 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. Tragedy simply 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 that needed some “semblance of normalcy,” as fellow legend Cheryl Miller put it.

Nelson left Sunday night with a show, this USC women’s program (16-1, 6-0) pouring soul onto hardwood in a 95-73 win over Penn State. She left with a photo with JuJu 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 Los Angeles sky, and the Palisades and Eaton fires have rampaged. Her own family, even, 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 that flocked to 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 (35 points, 11 rebounds), five steals, three 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 righty layup to cap off a 15-0 Trojans run before the break, Watkins beaming at a jumbotron camera as Galen erupted and fellow star Kiki Iriafen lifted her up 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 postgame, part of a thoughtful presser 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’s implored to her team across 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.

“That has an importance, as well, in their community,” Gottlieb said postgame. “And I think they’ve really bought into that.”

Sunday wasn’t perfect, USC’s defense too often lackadaisical on the interior in letting Penn State hang around for 16 minutes. But freshman Kayleigh Heckel provided a spark off the bench, with nine points and four assists. And the Trojans pulled away thanks to Watkins and Iriafen, Gottlieb calling the two “the best duo in the country” after USC’s win over Maryland Wednesday. As visually vibrant as Watkins’ game has become, Iriafen has become a methodical mechanic in the post, racking up a dominant 28 points on 12-of-18 shooting in feasting inside from the jump.

Most in Galen on Sunday, knew someone who’d lost something in the past week. Watkins. Gottlieb. Iriafen. Nelson. And there was a sense of unity in distraction, both from those on the floor and those watching.

“If we can put a smile on people’s faces for two hours, or kind of give them an escape to get away from everything that’s going on right now,” Iriafen said, “we’re super grateful to do that.”