I finally got everything communicating properly. After troubleshooting the breadboard rows, it turned out the default I2C pins on the ESP32-C3 Super Mini are strapping pins, which was messing with the boot traffic and breaking the connection to the sensor. To bypass that issue entirely, I re-routed the data lines to pins 12 and 13. I updated the code initialization to point there, and the MPU6050 connected instantly.
With that fixed, both the accelerometer and the 1.28-inch round watch screen are wired up and fully functional on the breadboard.
The main challenge now is the software. The core swing-tracking algorithm is still pretty buggy. The calculation that determines whether the clubface is open, closed, or square at the point of impact is throwing weird values, and the stroke path replay animation looks unnatural.