Tag: USC women’s basketball

Silver medal: USC women’s basketball finishes 2nd in final Pac-12 hoops season

USC won’t have to play on Wednesday at the Pac-12 Tournament. The Trojans secured an important first-round bye.

The USC women’s basketball team has done it. The Women of Troy beat Arizona State on Saturday, 70-55, in a game which was never particularly close. USC clinched the No. 2 seed for next week’s 2024 Pac-12 Women’s Basketball Tournament in Las Vegas. USC finished second in the last season of Pac-12 women’s basketball before the Trojans move to the Big Ten next season. It’s a terrific achievement for a team which has impressed, inspired, and regrouped countless times over the past four months.

Let’s look at some of the highlights of Saturday’s lunchtime win over Arizona State in Tempe, plus some seeding and bracketing scenarios for the Pac-12 Women’s Basketball Tournament, which we will cover extensively in the coming week here at Trojans Wire:

Top women’s basketball recruit Brynn McGaughy puts USC in top 12 list

USC wants to add to its 2025 recruiting haul, and here’s another possibility for Lindsay Gottlieb.

Class of 2025 6-2 junior forward Brynn McGaughy hails from Colfax, Washington. She listed USC in her top 12 schools.

McGaughy’s list also incldues UConn, Utah, Indiana, Washington, Duke, Iowa, Tennessee, UCLA, Oregon, North Carolina and Florida.

McGaughy is rated as the No. 4 forward and No. 15 overall player in the nation for the class of 2025 by ESPN. Prep Girls Hoops rates her as the No. 1 player in state of Washington for the Class of 2025.

McGaughy averaged 21.5 points and 10.3 rebounds for a Bulldog team that finished 28-0 and won the Washington 2B state championship and was named a first-team all-state player and sophomore of the year in Washington.

USC has the No. 1-ranked recruiting class for 2024, ahead of South Carolina. Lindsay Gottlieb, Beth Burns, and the rest of the staff are giving JuJu Watkins elite players who will complement her on the Trojans’ roster in the coming years. USC is putting the pieces of a top-tier program in place. Adding to the 2025 recruiting haul would be another step in the right direction for a program which is taking off.

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Notre Dame helps USC — you read that right: The Irish come through for the Trojans

The Fighting Irish’s win over Virginia Tech boosts USC’s chances of getting a No. 1 seed in March Madness.

Notre Dame helping USC? Why would the Fighting Irish do that? They were playing Virginia Tech on Thursday night. The key point to make here is that Virginia Tech is battling USC women’s basketball for a potential No. 1 seed in the 2024 Women’s NCAA Tournament. The Irish knocked off Virginia Tech, giving USC a boost.

Fighting Irish Wire has more:

“As impressive as Notre Dame’s win at UConn earlier this season was, it was a nonconference game. What ultimately matters is how you do against your conference foes, and the Irish had a tough one in No. 5 Virginia Tech on Thursday at Purcell Pavilion. It turned out not to matter as the Irish upset the Hokies in convincing fashion, 71-58.

“Not only did the Irish (22-6, 12-5) keep the Hokies (23-5, 14-3) from clinching the outright ACC title and snap their 10-game winning streak, but they kept their hopes for a top-four seed in the NCAA Tournament alive. A loss would have caused those hopes to hang by a thread at best, but that’s not the case.

“This game featured eight lead changes, all in the first quarter. The Irish never trailed again after KK Bransford made a layup late in that first quarter.”

USC’s path to a No. 1 seed just opened up a little more. While we thank Notre Dame, let’s look at what’s ahead for the Trojans in their fight for a top seed in March Madness:

Rayah Marshall and Kaitlyn Davis are playing their best for USC women’s basketball

Rayah Marshall and Kaitlyn Davis are hitting their stride for USC as March arrives. Good timing.

For most of the season, USC women’s basketball has been carried by its starting backcourt of JuJu Watkins, McKenzie Forbes, and Kayla Padilla. While those three players all played important roles in helping USC beat Arizona on Thursday in Tucson, the frontcourt tandem of Rayah Marshall and Kaitlyn Davis carried most of the workload for the Trojans.

Marshall and Davis both posted season-high point totals to pick up the slack on a night when their backcourt teammates weren’t shooting well from 3-point range. It’s true that USC tied this game late in regulation on a 3-pointer, and then broke a tie in the second overtime with a 3-pointer, but it was the gruntwork of Davis and Marshall which put USC in position to make those key shots.

Let’s go into greater detail about Marshall and Davis, the frontcourt which is stepping up at just the right time this season:

USC women’s basketball learned a lesson, turning one tough loss into a huge win

USC was caught without JuJu Watkins on January 21. The Trojans applied that game’s lessons on February 29.

USC women’s basketball ended the month of February with the kind of galvanizing moment which should increase this team’s belief heading into March Madness. Not having JuJu Watkins in crunch-time minutes due to a foul-out is something which had happened to USC before Thursday’s game at Arizona.

It is important to note that USC was caught shorthanded in a high-stress situation nearly 40 days before Thursday’s double-overtime victory in Tucson. A previous game in January planted the seeds which grew in the desert on the final night of February. The Trojans can convincingly tell themselves they are much more prepared for March.

Let’s go through this progression in the Women of Troy, who just grew up in a big way against Arizona:

USC women’s basketball delivers epic comeback 2-OT win at Arizona without JuJu Watkins

JuJu Watkins fouled out. USC trailed by 5 with 35 seconds left. Game over, right? Wrong. USC fought on and won.

Some victories for a sports team are simply inspiring. Some victories mean a lot within the course of the season and the stakes involved on a specific night. The USC women’s basketball team achieved a win which was both inspiring and important on Thursday night against the Arizona Wildcats. The Trojans scored a come-from-behind, double-overtime, 95-93 win against a hungry and determined opponent with JuJu Watkins having fouled out late in regulation time. USC then lost Kaitlyn Davis, another centrally important player, in the first overtime.

USC kept losing players. It never lost faith. Down by 10 with five minutes left in regulation, down five with 35 seconds remaining in regulation, the Trojans didn’t quit. The win is huge. The way they scored the win is remarkably impressive.

Let’s look at the highlights of a remarkable night for a special team:

USC has only one path to a No. 1 seed in Women’s NCAA Tournament

USC still has a chance for a No. 1 seed, but the odds are undeniably lower after the loss to Utah.

The USC women’s basketball team isn’t out of the running for a No. 1 seed in the 2024 Women’s NCAA Tournament, but the Trojans’ odds took a very big hit due to their loss to Utah on Sunday. Think of it this way: If the Trojans had any margin for error, it is likely gone now.

Is USC finished in terms of having any shot at a top seed? No. USC still has a chance, but it’s a slim one. To be more precise, USC has just one avenue to a No. 1 seed in the Women’s NCAA Tournament. We’ll share that path and walk through some of the other plot points involved:

USC Pac-12 championship hopes receive fatal blow, but Trojans still 2nd in the conference

If you had been told before the season USC would finish 2nd in the Pac-12, you probably would have been elated.

The USC Trojans’ Pac-12 women’s basketball championship hopes lasted about 42 hours. From the end of the Colorado game late Friday night to the end of Sunday afternoon’s loss to Utah, USC harbored realistic aspirations of being able to win a share of the last Pac-12 regular season title in women’s hoops. That dream died with the 74-68 defeat dealt by the Utes in a hard-fought game in the Galen Center.

Is the immediate result disappointing? No question. Yet, the larger picture is that USC made a great run at a conference championship which seemed out of the question for a good portion of the season. Let’s gain some perspective on the current balance of power in the Pac-12, but also on the journey USC took to get to this point:

USC women’s basketball loses to Utah, snapping 7-game winning streak

After seven straight wins, the Trojans had another bad day at the office. Get it out of the system before March.

The USC women’s basketball team had won seven games in a row entering Sunday’s regular-season home finale in the Galen Center against Utah. The Trojans had hoped to continue their winning ways, knowing that if they got through this game, they would play two teams outside the top five in the Pac-12 over the next week. Utah is a top-25 team which was a No. 2 seed in last year’s NCAA Tournament. The Utes are really good, and a lot better than the Arizona and Arizona State teams USC will face later this week. Beating Utah would have given USC a path to a possible Pac-12 championship and a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Alas, a loss. USC took a big hit with a 74-68 defeat. Let’s hit the main points of this result:

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: