No. 7 USC women’s basketball (21-5, 11-5 Pac-12) fell short on Sunday afternoon to No. 18 Utah (20-8, 10-6), losing 74-68 in the Trojans’ last home game of the regular season.
Galen Center was packed with players’ family, friends and dedicated fans to support the graduating Trojans on Senior Day, but the high energy in the stands was not enough to propel the Trojans to victory.
Coming off of their high-scoring win over Colorado on Friday, the Trojans were expected to take care of the ball and shoot accurately from the field, but they couldn’t quite emulate their scoring success from the other night.
The Trojans got off to a slow start in the first quarter, as their shots wouldn’t fall and they struggled to finish at the rim. USC was unable to contain Utah’s scrappiness or defend its shots from the field, which continued to be a theme throughout the rest of the game. By the end of the first, USC trailed Utah by the low score of 14-6.
The squad picked up momentum in the second quarter. Freshman guard JuJu Watkins had back-to-back 3-point plays and some important assists, allowing the Trojans to slowly catch up. As the best shooting team in the Pac-12, however, Utah continued to nail its jumpers and led 34-28 by halftime.
“We just didn’t run them off the 3-point line enough, flat out, for them to take 27 [3-point] attempts total,” USC head coach Lindsay Gottlieb said. “Some of it was missed shots, but most of it was that we couldn’t catch our rhythm. But, I thought we started attacking more in quarters two, three and four.
The second half was a constant game of catch-up for the Trojans, and aggression was at a high for both teams. Senior forward Kaitlyn Davis stood out as a team player with eight rebounds, but, unfortunately for the Trojans, she was a bit too aggressive on the defensive end and fouled out of the game toward the end of the fourth quarter.
“She plays extremely hard on both ends of the floor and everything in between,” Gottlieb said of Davis. “For the 40 minutes of the game, she’s gonna go all out, and that’s one of the million reasons we love her.”
The final minutes of the matchup were stressful. Down by just three points, the Trojans worked to close the gap, but the end-of-game free throws did not work in their favor. Overall, USC was unable to string its offense and defense together, resulting in the team’s first loss since January 28 and ending a seven-game winning streak.
Although Sunday’s competition was the last regular-season home game for the graduating Trojans, there is a lot more basketball ahead of them, including the Pac-12 and NCAA tournaments. USC is still in good shape to grab a top-four seed in the NCAAs, which would give the Trojans up to two more games at Galen Center.
Before that, the team looks forward to its road trip to Arizona. USC will face Arizona on Thursday at 5 p.m. and Arizona State on Saturday at 11 a.m. PST.