Kara Dunn held her right wrist aloft for an extra beat. Just to be sure.
It had been a while, by that point in the second quarter, since USC had seen a deep jumper drop. As Dunn lifted off from behind the arc against Portland on Tuesday, 19 of the Trojans’ previous 20 three-point attempts, going back to Saturday’s battle with South Carolina, had missed, a stretch of futility strange to a team that mostly scored at will a season ago.
But before any of those early concerns grew too glaring Tuesday night, Dunn watched as her jumper safely found the bottom of the net.