It was a very rough day for USC basketball after a great season for USC basketball. The men’s and women’s hoops teams both overachieved over the course of four full months, but their March Madness journeys were both agonizingly brief.
One and done in the Pac-12 Tournament. One and done in the NCAA Tournament.
The USC women’s basketball team suffered a particularly painful loss on Friday, falling to the South Dakota State Jackrabbits in overtime, 62-57. The Trojans led by three points in the fourth quarter. They tied the game with 6.7 seconds left on a 3-pointer by Destiny Littleton after an offensive rebound by a hard-working Trojan team which never let up and never quit. The Trojans just didn’t have enough offense, as was the case in nearly every loss they endured this season. USC lost a track meet to Utah in late January, and a high-scoring game to Cal in late February, but just about every other loss over the past few months was due to an offense which lacked a next-level, difference-making player.
The Trojans overachieved to get this far without an elite offensive force, but they lacked that extra pinch of potency in crunch time. They held South Dakota State to 45 points in regulation but managed only 45 themselves. SDSU took a seven-point lead in the extra period and managed to hang on for the win.
Much more on this game on Saturday here at Trojans Wire. Congratulations (and hugs) to the Women of Troy on a forward-moving season which can serve as a catapult toward bigger and better days under head coach Lindsay Gottlieb and assistant coach Beth Burns.
[mm-video type=video id=01gvr5eaxz0yt1szbzgn playlist_id=none player_id=01f5k5y2jb3twsvdg4 image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01gvr5eaxz0yt1szbzgn/01gvr5eaxz0yt1szbzgn-7d52c8210810f09dd3819b7b32b0146c.jpg]
[lawrence-auto-related count=1 tag=696091895]