The Piscataway Runaway. That’s one label for Sunday night’s USC-Rutgers women’s basketball game in New Jersey. USC women’s basketball marched to the East Coast and absolutely dismantled Rutgers in a game which was never close. One could tell five minutes in that Rutgers was not going to hang with the Women of Troy. This was a wipeout from start to finish. The final score was 92-42, and frankly, the game did not even feel that close.
USC could have won by 70, not 50, if it wanted to. Naturally, backups got a lot of fourth-quarter minutes, as the Trojans put the game to bed early. They led by 23 at halftime, 37-14, and then built that lead to 41 points (59-18) midway through the third quarter. USC came very close to holding Rutgers under 10 points in each of the first three quarters. Rutgers scored 10 in the third after managing just eight in the first and six in the second.
How lopsided was this game? Rutgers committed roughly twice as many turnovers (27) as the number of field goal attempts it made (14).
The scary part of all this: USC did not play a good offensive game. You might see the 92 points and think the Trojans played good offense, but they really didn’t. They hit just 9 of 28 3-pointers, under 33 percent. They committed 17 turnovers. That’s not elite. USC just had bigger, more physical players at all five spots on the floor. Rutgers was helpless, and the Trojans did their job. JuJu Watkins scored 23 points and grabbed 14 points to lead USC before a large Rutgers crowd which wanted to see JuJu do her thing. She most certainly did.
USC now prepares for a super showdown on Wednesday night at unbeaten Maryland. We’ll have a lot more on this game in the coming days. Stay tuned.