The other Pac-12 women’s basketball results from Friday night gave the USC Trojans good news.
First, since USC beat Stanford, the Trojans obviously want that win over the Cardinal to gain maximum value. This means that if Stanford is a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament as opposed to a No. 2 or 3 seed, USC will benefit more from that huge upset.
Friday night, No. 4 Stanford beat No. 8 Utah to take a big step toward staying on the one line as a projected top seed for March Madness. The Cardinal won an all-top-10 matchup to remain in first place in the conference. Stanford hosts Colorado on Sunday. The Buffaloes are 6-1 in the league. The winner will be first in the Pac-12 with one week left in January.
Notable: Stanford freshman point guard Talana Lepolo injured her ankle early in the game. She wore a protective boot after the injury, which caused her to miss most of the contest against Utah. This would seem to mean she will miss the Colorado game, so Stanford will be tested without a primary ball-handler.
In other Pac-12 results, UCLA trailed by nine at halftime but rallied to beat Washington in Seattle, 51-47. The Bruins beat USC twice, so as much as USC fans might not like to see UCLA win, in this case, the Bruins’ victory is unambiguously a good thing for the Trojans. USC does want those two UCLA losses to look better, not worse, as the season goes along.
A reminder: USC’s four losses are all to ranked teams: UCLA twice, Oregon once, Texas once.
Speaking of Oregon, one bad thing did happen to USC on Friday, though the Stanford and UCLA wins will minimize its negative effects: Oregon, one of USC’s few losses, did stumble. The Ducks lost at Oregon State and likely won’t be in the top 25 next week. Still, on balance, Pac-12 results from Friday, Jan. 20 were very good for USC women’s basketball.
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