Tag: USC women’s basketball

Reaching the Sweet 16 used to be commonplace at USC; Trojans might be starting a new era of similar success

USC made the Sweet 16 nearly every year way back when. The Trojans are trying to re-establish that standard — and they just might do it.

The first Women’s NCAA Tournament was held in 1982. From 1982 through 1994, USC was a legitimate national powerhouse in women’s college basketball. Yes, the height of USC’s glory came in the mid-1980s, with two national championships and three runs to the national title game, running through 1986. Even though the Final Fours didn’t continue to flow through the late 1980s and early 1990s, USC still made the Sweet 16 more often than not.

Here’s how consistently strong USC was as a women’s college basketball program through 1994, the last year before this one that the Trojans reached the Sweet 16: From 1982 through 1994 — 13 seasons — USC reached the Sweet 16 in 10 of those seasons. The Trojans made seven straight Sweet 16s from 1982 through 1988, then three straight years from 1992 through 1994. It was very rare when this program wasn’t playing for very high stakes in the second weekend of March Madness. Cheryl Miller played in a Sweet 16 and coached USC in a Sweet 16 in this glowing 13-year run of excellence. Lisa Leslie and Tina Thompson continued what Miller’s USC teams had started a decade earlier.

It is striking to note this level of elite consistency given that USC then fell off the map in women’s college basketball for multiple decades. It has taken USC 30 years to get back to a Sweet 16. Now, Lindsay Gottlieb, JuJu Watkins, and the new-age Women of Troy hope to create a fresh standard in which USC regularly makes the Sweet 16 and is actually disappointed if the Sweet 16 is as deep as it goes in March. USC faces Baylor in the 2024 Sweet 16 this Saturday afternoon in Portland. The game starts at 2:30 p.m. Pacific time on ESPN.

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Remembering USC women’s basketball’s last Sweet 16 game — and victory — against Dawn Staley’s mentor

There are a lot of amazing backstories attached to USC’s last Sweet 16 game, played 30 years ago against Virginia.

The workings of life and history are remarkable in their ability to create all sorts of connections and crosscurrents we marvel at decades later. Such is the case with USC women’s basketball’s last Sweet 16 game — and win — in the Women’s NCAA Tournament. Dawn Staley didn’t play in that game against USC, but her mentor, Debbie Ryan, coached against the Trojans.

Dawn Staley played at Virginia from 1988 through 1992, so she was gone by the time USC faced UVA in the 1994 Sweet 16. However, Staley’s coach — Debbie Ryan — was still there, leading Virginia through a very prosperous period. The apex of Ryan’s very successful tenure in Charlottesville came when Staley was the team’s unquestioned leader. Virginia made three straight Final Fours from 1990 through 1992, reaching the national championship game once. From 1990 through 1996, Virginia made the Elite Eight six out of seven times.

1994 is the one year UVA didn’t make the Elite Eight in that seven-season span. USC was the team which denied the Cavaliers, 85-66.

This was more than just a win over Dawn Staley’s coach, though. Tina Thompson, who helped USC win this game and move to the 1994 Elite Eight, became Virginia’s head coach over a decade later.

Debbie Ryan coached Virginia through 2011, when a woman named Joanne Boyle took over. Boyle left Cal, where she had been coaching the Golden Bears. The woman who succeeded her in Berkeley: Lindsay Gottlieb.

There’s quite a lot of women’s college basketball history attached to USC’s last Sweet 16 game and victory. Thirty years later, the Trojans finally return to the Sweet 16 with Gottlieb leading the way.

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Baylor, fresh off impressive win at Virginia Tech, tries to take down USC in Sweet 16

Baylor just won a tough road game at Virginia Tech. The Bears are good, and they’re coming for USC in the Sweet 16.

The Baylor Bears are next up for the USC women’s basketball team in the Women’s NCAA Tournament. Baylor lost to Iowa State in the Big 12 Tournament quarterfinals, so the Bears had a lot to prove heading into March Madness. They responded well, beating Vanderbilt and then Virginia Tech on the first weekend of the Big Dance. The win over Virginia Tech was a true road game on the Hokies’ home floor in Blacksburg, Virginia. That game is the entry point for a brief discussion about the Bears.

On one hand, winning an NCAA Tournament road game is extremely difficult, regardless of the opponent. Cassell Coliseum, Virginia Tech’s home arena, is a tough place to win in. Baylor’s ability to scratch out a 75-72 win over the Hokies reflects well on the Bears and shows how formidable they are. Baylor was not favored to win that game. The Bears — like Colorado beating Kansas State in the second round of the NCAA Tournament — won a true road game to reach the Sweet 16. That deserves a lot of respect.

Yet, as well as Baylor did play to win against Virginia Tech, it remains that the Hokies were without star player Elizabeth Kitley, who was injured and unable to play. Virginia Tech without Kitley is a greatly diminished version of its best self. Baylor turned in a winning performance, but the depleted nature of its opponent can’t be ignored.

So, as Baylor now faces USC in the Sweet 16, we’re all wondering how much the Kitley injury influenced that outcome, and how prepared the Bears will be against a full-strength USC team with all of its best players available for this regional semifinal on Saturday.

USC might benefit from playing Baylor in this respect: The Trojans just faced Kansas, a fellow Big 12 school. Lindsay Gottlieb, Beth Burns, and the rest of the staff might watch some Kansas-Baylor game film this week to get a feel for how the Trojans can attack and respond to Baylor at both ends of the floor. USC will need to minimize turnovers, which became a problem against Kansas, and find a way to get to the free throw line more than it did this past Monday versus KU.

Having seen Baylor score 75 on the road at Virginia Tech, USC will need to find a way to make sure Baylor doesn’t score in the 70s. USC gives itself the best possible chance of winning when it can hold an opponent under 60 points. There’s a lot to deal with when looking at a Baylor team whose toughness is impossible to ignore.

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Everyone wants to see USC vs UConn, but Trojans must first focus on Baylor

USC needs tunnel vision and an ability to ignore the media’s talk about anything beyond Baylor.

The USC women’s basketball team is in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. The Trojans are in Portland for a regional which also includes the Connecticut Huskies. UConn is the ultimate powerhouse in women’s college basketball — not this season, but certainly over the past 30 years. The Huskies will be appearing in their 30th straight Sweet 16. They have won 11 national titles in those 30 years and have made 21 Final Four appearances. Geno Auriemma basically owned the sport of women’s college basketball from 2002 through 2016. In that 15-year span, UConn won nine national titles. The Huskies won the national title for a majority of a time period lasting a decade and a half.

This year’s UConn team has been ravaged by a flood of injuries. The Huskies are seeded third and aren’t at full strength. Yet, it’s still UConn. It’s still Geno. Paige Bueckers, an elite player, is still on the roster, giving this team a chance to go to the Final Four. You know that ESPN and a lot of women’s basketball fans want to see USC and JuJu Watkins get their shot at UConn next Monday with the Final Four on the line. That is going to be a talking point in Portland heading into the Sweet 16.

USC has to block out that talk and the distractions which come along with it. The Trojans have to have tunnel vision and focus relentlessly on their next opponent, the Baylor Bears. Baylor comes from a Big 12 Conference which is putting up a fight in this NCAA Tournament. Texas looks strong heading into its own Sweet 16 battle in Portland against Gonzaga on Friday. Iowa State nearly upset Stanford on the road, losing an epic game in overtime this past Sunday in Maples Pavilion. The Big 12 has quality teams. Baylor is one of them. The Bears just beat Virginia Tech on the road to make their way to Portland.

USC-UConn? Nope. Don’t go down that road just yet. People will talk about it, but USC has other things to do before then. The Trojans need to play with great clarity to handle Baylor on Saturday afternoon. The game starts at 2:30 p.m. Pacific time on ESPN.

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JuJu Watkins and Cheryl Miller discuss USC’s run to No. 1 seed for NCAA Tournament, and more

Cheryl Miller and JuJu Watkins had a conversation. You’ll want to watch it.

Cheryl Miller’s place as a basketball icon is enormous and secure. JuJu Watkins is just beginning to collect awards and pursue championships at USC. An established USC great and a rising USC star have a lot to talk about, and one of the great things about this USC women’s basketball season is how it has brought the legend and the current Trojan star together.

Cheryl Miller’s imprint on USC and Los Angeles sports is massive. As we noted, “After facing Kim Mulkey in a contentious Final Four semifinal on March 30, 1984, Cheryl Miller became a teammate of Mulkey on the 1984 United States Women’s Basketball National Team. Miller, Mulkey, and other women’s basketball stars of the era led the USA to the gold medal at the Los Angeles Olympics. Miller therefore won a national title and Olympic gold in Los Angeles in 1984, a very special year for a USC basketball icon.”

Cheryl Miller and JuJu Watkins talked ball, USC, and more in a conversation you won’t want to miss. Here it is:

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Texas A&M-Corpus Christi coach Royce Chadwick might have helped USC going into second round of NCAA Tournament

Texas A&M-Corpus Christi coach Royce Chadwick might have helped USC and Lindsay Gottlieb. We’ll explain.

The USC Trojans easily defeated the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders and coach Royce Chadwick in the first round of the Women’s NCAA Tournament on Saturday. An 87-55 win in which USC led 21-2 late in the first quarter would qualify as an easy win. Yet, while the overall game was relatively manageable and the Trojans were never in real danger of losing, it’s not as though the full 40-minute performance was smooth and clean.

USC was very ragged and sloppy in the second quarter and portions of the third. The Trojans, who grabbed a 19-point lead before the end of the first quarter, watched their lead get chopped down to nine points at one point before extending their advantage. A&M-CC was still competitive in this game midway through the third quarter before JuJu Watkins and the Trojans created significant separation. It really was a good effort from the No. 16 seed, which put up a far better fight than the score indicated.

We’re here to praise A&M-CC and Royce Chadwick for their effort, but there is a second purpose to this article: USC has plenty to work on coming out of the A&M-CC game. The Trojans were sloppy in ways which could bite them if they aren’t sharper in future rounds, beginning with Monday against Kansas.

Royce Chadwick’s main tactical achievement against USC was to fluster the Trojans with a zone defense which became a hard, aggressive halfcourt zone trap at times. McKenzie Forbes and other USC players froze on a few occasions against those hard traps, committing turnovers and not rotating the ball quickly when doubled or pressured.

One thing USC coaches have stressed all season was making sure players are prepared for different defensive looks. JuJu Watkins has been exposed to all sorts of defensive configurations. Stanford’s defense against JuJu in the Pac-12 Tournament final was something USC’s coaches said they had never seen before. Exposure to different tactics is something USC’s coaches really value in teaching and adjusting. Yet, there were times on Saturday against A&M-CC that USC seemed like it had never faced a halfcourt zone trap. That could be just the thing to make USC smarter and sharper against Kansas and for the remainder of the NCAA Tournament. The Trojans can’t afford to give away a game with careless turnovers and any other kinds of mistakes.

Thank you, Royce Chadwick, for that reminder.

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JuJu Watkins breaks Cheryl Miller’s all-time single-season USC scoring record

JuJu Watkins and Cheryl Miller are linked forever in USC women’s basketball history.

JuJu Watkins has racked up a lot of awards this season. She is a First-Team All-American. She is the 2024 NCAA Women’s Basketball Freshman of the Year. She has made history on a lot of levels at USC. Now comes one of the crown-jewel achievements of her resplendent 2024 season: She is now the all-time single-season scoring leader for USC women’s basketball. Cheryl Miller had the record at 814 points. JuJu broke it early on Saturday in the Trojans’ NCAA Tournament opener against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.

Watkins will now try to win honors connected to team success. USC, powered by Watkins, led A&M-CC by a 36-20 score at halftime. The Trojans are trying to earn their way into the second round on Monday evening in the Galen Center against the Kansas Jayhawks, who defeated the Michigan Wolverines in overtime in the day’s first of two games in Galen.

JuJu Watkins broke a Cheryl Miller record set in 1986, the last time the Trojans were a No. 1 seed in the Women’s NCAA Tournament before this year. The year 1986 is also the last time the Trojans made the Women’s Final Four and reached the national championship game. Those are the goals JuJu Watkins wants to reach more than anything else.

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USC Women’s NCAA Tournament preview: Trojans are focused on Game 1, but what about Game 2?

USC, if it wins its first game this weekend, has a short turnaround for a Monday second-rounder. Here’s a quick look:

The USC Trojans need to win four games in the next two weeks to punch their ticket to the 2024 Women’s Final Four in Cleveland. This Women’s NCAA Tournament will be an unqualified success for USC if it can get that far. First things first, though: USC needs to win its two games this weekend in the Galen Center at the NCAA Women’s Tournament’s subregional, the four-team pod through which one team will advance to the Sweet 16 next week in Portland. USC has its first-round game versus Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, but before that game on Saturday in Galen, Michigan and Kansas will battle in the 9-versus-8 seed matchup.

In previewing this subregional, Kansas appears to be the tougher, thornier potential opponent for USC for one basic reason: The Jayhawks are a defense-first team. They rely on their toughness to win games. This brings up a memory from last year’s NCAA Tournament which doesn’t involve USC but could play into a potential Kansas-USC matchup on Monday in the second round.

Ole Miss, under coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin, is a defense-first team. “Coach Yo” had Ole Miss ready to muck things up against Stanford and its skilled performers in the second round last year. It didn’t matter that Stanford was a No. 1 seed playing on its home floor. Ole Miss made the game physical and ugly and difficult, and Stanford couldn’t handle that. USC has seen what a physical, tough, defense-first team can do to its offense. Arizona really bothered the Trojans in recent weeks. Kansas could be that thorny kind of foe in the second round. USC needs to be ready to win an ugly game.

Yes, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi is the first point of focus for this team. We’re not ignoring that. However, in terms of looking at all four teams in Los Angeles this weekend, we who write about USC sports can give you a little sneak peek at Kansas in a possible second-round game. Our conclusion: Michigan beating Kansas would be a good outcome for USC. We will see what happens.

Michigan-Kansas starts the Saturday schedule at Galen Center at 11 a.m. local time in Los Angeles on ESPNEWS. USC then follows with a 1:30 p.m. game (30 minutes after Michigan-Kansas) on ESPN.

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The most important number for USC women’s basketball in NCAA Tournament first-round game

Beyond winning the game, USC needs to achieve one other specific goal in its NCAA Tournament opener on Saturday.

The USC women’s basketball team begins the Women’s NCAA Tournament this Saturday afternoon on its home floor in the Galen Center, the first time the Trojans will host an NCAA Tournament game in Galen since the building opened nearly 20 years ago. It’s a special time for USC, coach Lindsay Gottlieb, superstar JuJu Watkins, and the rest of an overachieving team which won the Pac-12 Tournament and gained a No. 1 seed.

As USC prepares for its first-round game versus the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders, the Trojans aren’t expected to be tested in this contest. It’s a 1 seed versus a 16 seed, after all. What should USC realistically try to get out of this game beyond a win? There’s one really big key, and there’s one number you should have in mind when thinking about that key point.

USC, if it wins on Saturday, would have to turn around on Monday and play another game against Michigan or Kansas. If you watched JuJu Watkins during the season, you know that in the games where she has more rest, she plays and shoots better. She always delivers on defense, but her better offensive games during the season usually came on Fridays and not Sundays. Her 51-point game against Stanford: Friday. Her excellent game versus Colorado: Friday. Her 8 of 27 shooting performance in the loss to Washington? Sunday. Her 6 of 32 shooting line at Oregon State? Sunday.

USC needs JuJu Watkins to be fresh for Monday. That means putting this game away at halftime or early in the third quarter, so that JuJu can get added rest for the Monday game.

The important number: 25. If JuJu Watkins doesn’t have to play more than 25 minutes, that would be a great result for USC. Watkins averages 34.3 minutes per game. Yes, she has had a long time to rest, but she needs her best game in the second round. She shouldn’t have to be at her very best against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. If JuJu can at least play fewer than 30 minutes, that would be good, but hitting 25 minutes — maybe 27 tops — would be especially encouraging for this team as it tries to handle the strain of playing two NCAA Tournament games in three days.

USC plays A&M-CC at 1:30 p.m. in Los Angeles on Saturday, with ESPN showing the game nationwide.

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USC’s JuJu Watkins does something which hadn’t happened in 28 years

JuJu Watkins is USC WBB’s first player to become a First-Team All-American since the great Tina Thompson in 1996.

The USC women’s basketball team has authored a very special season in 2024. The Trojans, as a group, have done something no USC women’s basketball team has achieved in 38 years: Get a No. 1 seed at the NCAA Tournament. USC has won the Pac-12 Tournament for the first time since 2014. The Trojans, who have played in the Galen Center for nearly 20 years, will finally host NCAA Tournament games in their on-campus arena for the very first time. This is a season full of milestones and landmark moments for USC women’s basketball. You can add one more achievement to the list: JuJu Watkins was named a First-Team All-American in 2024, marking the first time in 28 years anyone at the program has done so. You would have to go back to Tina Thompson in 1996 to identify USC’s previous First-Team All-American.

JuJu Watkins probably would have made the All-America Team solely on the basis of her scoring prowess. She has spent almost all of the season second on the average points-per-game scoring list behind Iowa superstar Caitlin Clark. Watkins likely would have been a Second-Team All-America selection solely for her offensive ability.

What makes JuJu Watkins a first-teamer, not a second-teamer, on the All-America roster is her defense. Watkins is an elite on-ball defender who regularly gets multiple steals per game. She is a capable shot blocker as well and has great instincts as a help defender for USC. JuJu Watkins’ quality at both ends of the floor, not just offense, is what makes her a legitimate first-team selection. Now we will see how far this First-Team All-American can carry the Trojans in the Women’s NCAA Tournament.

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