The job is far from finished.
Despite beating the UCLA Bruins last Saturday to secure the regular-season title, the USC women’s basketball team would prefer winning its first Big Ten Tournament championship.
Since the rivalry victory, many accolades have rained down on the program, and rightfully so. Star sophomore guard JuJu Watkins won the Big Ten Player of the Year after averaging 24.4 points and 6.7 rebounds per game. Head coach Lindsay Gottlieb won the second conference coach of the year award of her career after earning a Pac-12 Coach of the Year award with the Cal Golden Bears in 2013. Watkins, as well as graduate forward Kiki Iriafen, are both finalists for their respective position awards as well.
But personal hardware aside, the road to holding a second straight conference tournament title will not be smooth.
USC will start with the No. 9-seeded Indiana Hoosiers Friday after the Hoosiers pulled out a victory over the No. 8-seed Oregon Ducks. In that matchup, Indiana won in dominant fashion, 78-62, after capitalizing on the Ducks’ seven turnovers in the first quarter. Led by junior guard Yarden Garzon’s 18 points and junior guard Shay Ciezki’s 17, Indiana typically plays a small-ball strategy, which USC will invite with open arms.
When the two matched up in late January earlier this year, USC came away with a seven-point victory, relying heavily on five players who each had over 34 minutes: Watkins, Iriafen, graduate guard Talia Von Oelhoffen, freshman guard Kennedy Smith and senior center Rayah Marshall. Since then, the Trojans have shown off their elite depth at the guard position, with freshmen guards Avery Howell and Kayleigh Heckel stepping up for the team at numerous points in the back half of the season. Against Indiana, USC can either accept the guard dual, or it can go big down low with Marshall and Iriafen and overpower the Hoosiers to the semifinals.
From there, USC would go up against either the Maryland Terrapins or the Michigan Wolverines. The Terps are an extremely legitimate team that USC faced early in the season at College Park, Maryland. Five Trojans tallied double-digit points in the 79-74 barn-burner, as Watkins and Iriafen put up 21 each, Smith recorded 11, and Heckel and Howell notched 10 apiece. During that game, USC shot a not-so-good 33.3% from behind the arc, but has drastically improved its distance shooting since that game. Despite only scoring four points, Marshall tallied 15 rebounds during the game and was a massive contributor to the Trojans’ victory.
The other side of that coin would be the Wolverines. The Trojans had little problem against Michigan the last time out, securing a dominant 20-point win.
Still, USC did not have to deal with freshman guard Syla Swords, who had 15 points in the Wolverines’ game on Thursday against the Washington Huskies to go along with fellow freshman guard Olivia Olson’s 21 points. Against Michigan, Watkins was highly effective at getting to the line, and her 31 points — along with Marshall’s 15 and Iriafen’s 18 — will likely inspire a game plan to try and work down in the post if the Trojans go against a physically smaller Michigan team.
If the Trojans win their semifinal game, all roads would look toward the trilogy fight between the team from Westwood. The first two went in the direction of those rooting for cardinal and gold, but sweeping the Bruins will still be a tall task as UCLA will be looking for revenge after losing by 13 points at home. The loss was further punctuated because USC had its subs in for the better side of the game’s last two minutes.
Watkins has shown that when the game is on the line, she truly is in her prime and, against the Bruins, it has been no different. She averages 34 points, seven rebounds and five-and-a-half blocks against the team in blue this year, and with the pressure of a Big Ten Tournament on the line, nobody would be surprised if she puts up historic numbers again.
Of course, there is an extremely slim chance that the Bruins drop a game on their debatably easier side of the bracket, with their toughest foes being THE Ohio State University — who USC beat by 21 — and the No. 11-seeded Iowa Hawkeyes, who represent USC’s lone conference loss of the year, dominated the No. 4-seeded Wisconsin Badgers 81-54 on Wednesday.
The Bruins have beaten both of these teams, taking down the Buckeyes by 13 but narrowly defeating Hawkeyes by two at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. After an intense press conference by coach Cori Close following the USC loss, it wouldn’t be a surprise if UCLA looks like a reinvigorated, better basketball team coming into this tournament.
But, before going against any other team, USC will have to win its first game against Indiana at 9 a.m. on Friday.