Christmas is a time for gratitude and giving, among many other things. USC sports fans are grateful that the Trojan women’s basketball program has given them a high-quality team to root for. Football and men’s basketball are falling short. Women’s basketball is 10-0 and ranked No. 6 in the country.
USC women’s basketball diehards know how important Beth Burns is to the Trojans’ success, but casual fans who are aware of head coach Lindsay Gottlieb, superstar JuJu Watkins, and star defender Rayah Marshall might not realize how valuable Burns is as Gottlieb’s lead assistant coach.
Burns is a former head coach and a savvy, knowledgeable presence, but what makes her such a vital piece of the USC puzzle is that she and Gottlieb have a yin-and-yang complementarity as coaches. Gottlieb is the offensive architect at USC. She convinced Burns to come to Los Angeles to be the defensive coordinator and provide a sharper focus for the team at that end of the floor. USC essentially has two head coaches who can instruct and develop players holistically, but the Burns-Gottlieb relationship enables each half of the pairing to offer a little more emphasis on one side of the ball.
This is in many ways the kind of coaching arrangement Lincoln Riley failed to develop in football until finally firing Alex Grinch and hiring D’Anton Lynn, Matt Entz, and Doug Belk on his new staff for 2024. It took him two years to really figure that out.
Gottlieb, as the new USC women’s basketball coach, knew this right away. Burns has been central to the project of quickly revitalizing this program and putting it in position for bigger achievements in the years ahead.
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