The Women’s NCAA Tournament began in 1982. USC quickly established itself as a national power in the era of the Women’s NCAA event. The Men’s NCAA Tournament began in 1939, so it has established a much larger and deeper history compared to the women. However, we are seeing right now the evolution and growth of women’s basketball in a way which applied to the men’s game in the early 1980s. Think about it for a second: The 1979 men’s championship game between Larry Bird of Indiana State and Magic Johnson of Michigan State was seen as a major growth point for college hoops. The Caitlin Clark-Angel Reese women’s national championship game between Iowa and LSU last year — following Clark’s win over No. 1 South Carolina in the Final Four — could have marked a similar growth point for women’s college basketball. If the women’s game is now where the men’s game was in the early 1980s, how fitting it is that we should look back at USC’s first women’s basketball national title in 1983. With the Trojans having a No. 1 seed at the 2024 Women’s NCAA Tournament, there’s a need to preview the 2024 USC team’s March Madness bracket, but there’s also a need to look back at the start of the USC women’s basketball dynasty in the early 1980s:
The 1983 Women’s NCAA Tournament had 36 teams, nine in each region. The lowest two seeds in each region had a play-in game to face the No. 1 seed. USC faced Northeast Louisiana, which defeated Montana in the West Region play-in game. With only 36 teams in the tournament, USC didn’t have to play two games to make the Sweet 16. The Trojans’ win here put them into the regional semifinals.
USC blew out its Pac-10 competitor in the regional semifinals. ASU was a No. 4 seed, and yet USC treated the Sun Devils like a much lower seed.
The Women’s Final Four wasn’t nearly as big an event in 1983 as it is today, but USC reached its first Final Four by beating No. 2 seed Long Beach State. The fun was just starting for the Trojans’ dynasty in the 1980s.
USC entered the Final Four and took care of business in a 24-point thrashing of Georgia. The Bulldogs would be a strong women’s college basketball team for the next few decades, but USC won this first big battle in the national semifinals.
USC won a thriller over Louisiana Tech to win its first women’s basketball national championship. Louisiana Tech had a spunky, tough point guard. Her name? Kim Mulkey. Yeah. The same person who coached LSU to the national title last year and who has won three national titles as a coach, two with Baylor. Mulkey and Louisiana Tech won the first Women’s NCAA Tournament in 1982 and were going for back-to-back titles. USC narrowly prevented Tech from achieving that feat. Next year, it was USC which would go back-to-back and become the first winner of two Women’s NCAA Tournaments.