USC women’s basketball avoids weekend sweep, shoots its way to victory over No. 25 Colorado

USC women’s basketball was able to pick up its first ranked win since it downed No. 2 Stanford with a 71-54 victory over Colorado Sunday morning.

The Trojans allowed a season-high 83 points to Utah in a tough loss Friday. After the win Sunday, head coach Lindsay Gottlieb emphasized the Trojans’ focus entering the matchup with Colorado was “defense in general … knowing that’s our calling card, going back to our identity and making it a priority to get stops.”

The Pac-12′s top scoring defense bounced back by holding the Buffs to just 54 points on 40% shooting from the field. It was the 17th game this season USC has been able to keep its opponent under the 60-point mark.

USC was led by a three-headed monster on offense, with graduate forward Kadi Sissoko scoring 18, sophomore forward Rayah Marshall scoring 19 and graduate guard Destiny Littleton leading her team with 21 points on just six made field goals. Marshall and Sissoko also had double-doubles on the day, with 10 and 12 rebounds, respectively.

“We knew that we could potentially score inside on them,” Gottlieb said. “I thought Kadi and Rayah both delivered on what we feel like the identity of the team can be: to score inside and make threes.”

Colorado started out fast, leading 9-4 midway through the first quarter. After a USC timeout, the Trojans finished the period with a 10-0 run to take a 14-9 lead.

The game stayed close until halftime, with USC ahead 26-22 at the break. The Trojans broke away in the third quarter, matching their combined score from the first half and outscoring the Buffs 26-19.

The key to USC’s strong third quarter was how it started. Colorado missed their first two shots from the field and allowed the Trojans to go on a 9-1 run in the first two minutes after halftime.

USC entered the final period with an 11-point lead and used a pair of and-1 three-point plays from Marshall and Sissoko to grow their advantage to 17 points. From then on, the Trojans utilized a combination of scoring and another nearly three-minute drought from the Buffs to hold their lead until the final buzzer.

The key for the Trojans was their efficiency from beyond the arc. USC and Colorado shot similarly from the field as a whole — 45% and 40% — but the Trojans were able to score 27 of their points from three compared to just nine from the Buffs. The No. 1-ranked three-point defense in the Pac-12 proved worthy of the title, forcing Colorado to shoot just 20% from deep.

Another difference maker was at the free-throw line, where the Trojans improved upon their season-average of 70%. USC knocked down 10 of 12 free throws, while Colorado had a shaky day at the charity stripe, only managing to make 5 of 13.

The win over Colorado is an important victory for USC after having several ranked wins elude them this season, most notably two losses to crosstown rival UCLA by a combined four points.

With their current position on the bubble of the NCAA tournament, USC will need to add more to its resume to finish out the season and secure their spot in March Madness.

The Trojans will have a prime chance to build their tournament case this coming weekend when they return home and welcome No. 19 Arizona to Galen Center on Feb. 5. First up though, USC must defend its home court against Arizona State at 7 p.m. Friday.