Tag: Beth Burns

Beth Burns offers a look inside her methods as USC’s defensive coordinator

D’Anton Lynn is good. Beth Burns has been brilliant as the main defensive strategist for USC women’s basketball.

In basketball, we don’t always refer to assistant coaches as “coordinators,” but it’s a very real thing to identify certain assistant coaches as precisely that. Beth Burns of USC qualifies as one such example.

Certain head coaches in basketball — just like football — have a knack for coaching one side of the ball but need help with the other side. There have been examples of “coordinator hires” making a difference for basketball teams in the NBA and college hoops. Doc Rivers hired Tom Thibodeau as his defensive coordinator with the Boston Celtics, a move which helped Boston win the 2008 NBA championship. Michigan head coach John Beilein hired defensive coordinator Luke Yaklich, a move which enabled Michigan to reach the 2018 NCAA national championship game.

USC head coach Lindsay Gottlieb develops great offensive sets, but she really wanted help on defense, and that’s where hiring Beth Burns as an assistant came into play. Burns’ performance at USC has been nothing short of spectacular.

Luca Evans of the Orange County Register (subscription required) wrote a very informative piece on Burns’ methods. We’ll include a few short excerpts and add some extra details about Burns’ record at USC:

USC’s Lindsay Gottlieb and Beth Burns have figured out how to stop Stanford’s offense

In 2023 and now in 2024, Stanford’s offense has not been able to solve USC’s defense. It’s a trend.

Fans of the Stanford Cardinal are looking at USC women’s basketball with respect, but also annoyance, after the Trojans knocked off the Trees on Friday night in Palo Alto. USC is a legitimately good team, but the Trojans seem to save their best defensive performances for Stanford and Tara VanDerveer. Lindsay Gottlieb coached against Tara for years at Cal. Beth Burns, a veteran coach, owns considerable expertise in her own right as Gottlieb’s defensive coordinator and as a top-rate basketball mind. Gottlieb and Burns always seem to get the scouting report right when attacking Stanford’s offense. If one’s an accident and two is a trend, USC has one and a half trends going right now.

USC’s return to prominence in women’s college basketball began on January 15, 2023, with a 55-46 win over Stanford. USC bothered Stanford stars Cameron Brink and Haley Jones. Just for good measure, USC held Stanford to 50 points a few weeks later in the 2023 season. The Cardinal won, but only because they held USC to 47 points. The Trees never did solve the Gottlieb-Burns defense.

Now, here we are a year later. USC again went into Maples Pavilion and held Stanford under 60 points for a third straight time overall, a second straight time in Stanford’s gym. Cameron Brink was once again contained by the Trojans. She hit just 4 of 14 field goal attempts. She scored 11 of her 19 points at the foul line. USC’s three main frontcourt players — Rayah Marshall, Clarice Akunwafo, and Kaitlyn Davis — used all 15 fouls. The Trojans were then able to withstand Brink even after their frontcourt fouled out.

The rising star for Stanford this season is forward Kiki Iriafen. Brink got injured a few weeks ago (before coming back to the lineup). Iriafen scored 36 points with Brink out against Oregon State, in the win which gave Tara VanDerveer her record-breaking 1,203rd win, passing Mike Krzyzewski as the all-time winningest Division I college basketball coach. Iriafen averaged over 26 points in her previous four games.

Against USC, she managed only 16 points on 6-of-18 shooting. Iriafen and Brink combined to make just 10 of 32 field goal attempts. USC could not have defended the two players any better.

JuJu Watkins scoring 51 was the main highlight of Friday night. USC holding Stanford under 60 for a third straight time is the other central reason the Trojans won. The staff had the right defensive plan, and the players executed it brilliantly … again.

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Beth Burns is an unsung heroine of USC sports (not just women’s basketball)

Beth Burns is a powerful example of how to construct a great coaching staff.

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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Lindsay Gottlieb and Beth Burns maintain defensive juggernaut at USC

The numbers USC is generating at the defensive end of the floor are ridiculous. We have fast facts and figures on a defense which would make Lincoln Riley jealous.

The defensive numbers produced by USC women’s basketball are simply off the charts. It’s hard to wrap the mind around how good this defense is. Throwing a shutout at the Washington Huskies in overtime of Sunday’s 63-54 win is very impressive, but some of the statistics which flowed from that victory are eye-popping.

USC created 22 Washington turnovers in the game while allowing just five free throw attempts to the Huskies. Keep in mind that since the game went into overtime, USC allowed five free throw attempts in 45 minutes, not 40. That’s one free throw attempt every nine scoreboard-clock minutes.

This marked the second straight game in which USC allowed only five free throws to its opponent. The Trojans did the same thing on Friday against Washington State. They forced 18 turnovers in that game.

One week earlier, USC allowed only 10 free throws to Stanford while earning 26 attempts of their own. USC was plus-nine in free throw makes in a game it won 55-46.

Seems significant, right?

The Trojans forced 14 turnovers against Stanford. If you’re following the numbers, you will see that in each of its last three games, USC women’s basketball is creating turnovers far more frequently than it is allowing free throw attempts.

Cumulatively, USC has allowed 20 free throw attempts in the last three games while forcing 54 turnovers. That’s nearly a 3-to-1 ratio.

No wonder USC is winning games despite its own turnover problems (20 against Washington) and low shooting percentages (27 against Stanford, 37 against Washington State). If a defense is going to force turnovers nearly three times as often as it allows a free throw attempt, it is going to be very hard to beat that team, even if its offense is noticeably flawed.

The rest of the Pac-12 is learning that about USC. Lindsay Gottlieb and Beth Burns have built quite a defense.

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USC win over Washington State fueled by another defensive clinic from Beth Burns

USC gave up just 46 points to Stanford. It gave up even fewer points to Wazzu. The Trojans have not allowed more than 46 in each of their last 3 games. Elite defense.

The USC defense is dominant. We are obviously not talking about football.

The USC women’s basketball team has a defense that just won’t quit. The Trojans — coming off games in which they held Cal to 43 points (January 13) and Stanford to 46 (January 15) — managed to hold Washington State to 44 points on Friday night in Pullman. USC translated that defensive masterclass into a win which lifts the Trojans closer to the NCAA Tournament.

Against Stanford, USC won despite scoring only 55 points and shooting 27 percent from the field.

Against Washington State, USC shot 37 percent — still not great, but better than the Stanford showdown — and committed 19 turnovers. USC was 5 of 17 on 3-pointers.

Wait a minute: 37 percent shooting and 19 turnovers … and making only 5 of 17 3-pointers? That is an objectively bad offensive performance.

It didn’t matter, because USC’s defense is simply locked in.

The Trojans held Washington State to 35-percent shooting, 5 of 16 on 3-pointers, and just five free throw attempts, all while forcing 18 turnovers.

The free throw tally was crucial: Washington State made 3 of its 5 tries. USC went 10 of 15 at the line, which isn’t great, but still shows a seven-point advantage.

The final margin of victory for USC: seven points.

Lindsay Gottlieb and assistant coach Beth Burns have USC’s defense rolling. The Trojans have a defense so good that subpar offensive games don’t (currently) get in the way of the team’s success.

Burns, USC’s best defensive coordinator, continues to be a core part of this push toward March Madness.

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Meet USC’s best defensive coordinator

It’s obviously not Alex Grinch. It’s Beth Burns, a great defensive coach who has been an essential part of #USC WBB’s rise under Lindsay Gottlieb.

USC can really use a good defensive coordinator in football. In women’s basketball, it has a great one.

Basketball doesn’t officially have coordinators the way football does, but on some staffs, head coaches have assistants who heavily teach or plan one side of the ball. For example, on the 2008 NBA champion Boston Celtics, head coach Doc Rivers had assistant Tom Thibodeau serve as his defensive coordinator. Thibs developed defensive plans which maximized the talents of Kevin Garnett and the rest of that Boston roster. The Celtics defeated Kobe Bryant and the Lakers to win the 2008 NBA Finals.

USC has an elite defensive tactician on its staff. Head coach Lindsay Gottlieb made a brilliant offseason hire when she brought aboard Beth Burns, the former head coach at San Diego State and Ohio State who was previously a USC assistant. Burns more recently served as an assistant to Jeff Walz, the highly successful coach at Louisville, which is an annual Final Four contender.

Beth Burns has helped Gottlieb create a defense which has allowed more than 62 points — or an average of 15.5 points allowed per quarter — only once in 17 games this season. USC is shooting under 40 percent from the field, under 34 percent from 3-point range, and only 72 percent at the line, all underwhelming numbers. Yet, the Trojans are 13-4 because their defense is so good.

That’s Lindsay Gottlieb, but it’s also Beth Burns, USC’s elite defensive coordinator.

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