LOS ANGELES – Just a couple minutes after the USC women’s basketball team erupted into pandemonium at their Selection Sunday watch party, freshly minted as a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, murmurs flitted and eyebrows raised at another program tabbed in their bracket.
The No. 2 seed in the Portland 3 regional, USC’s division? Ohio State. The game where it all began, USC beating a preseason seventh-ranked Buckeyes program in Las Vegas in November to kick off the season, JuJu Watkins dropping 32 points in her Trojans debut.
“I kinda overheard the announcer saying – cause they seen that we were the one seed and they were the two seed – we can potentially play each other,” USC center Rayah Marshall said Sunday, of Ohio State. “And they were saying, they should have a chip on their shoulder.”
“But I mean, same thing for us,” Marshall added. “Before we even played Ohio State, we were ranked under them. We were the underdogs. We still got that chip, and hunger, on our shoulder for whatever opponent we face.”
For three years, under head coach Lindsay Gottlieb, USC has been punching upwards. Suddenly, after a run through the Pac-12 Tournament toppling UCLA and Stanford, they’ve been tabbed as prom queens of the Big Dance, arriving wholly ahead of schedule in Watkins’ freshman year. And entering the NCAA Tournament, USC’s largest philosophical challenge will come in re-framing program expectations, no longer scrappy upstarts of the Pac-12 but a national power who’s an underdog to precious few.
“Obviously, South Carolina’s had a year that’s sort of stood out amongst everybody else – they’re undefeated,” Gottlieb said March 5, referencing the 32-0 Gamecocks. “And then after that, there’s kind of a handful of teams that, we’re sort of in the same realm. And I think we’ve really worked our way and earned our way to be in that realm.”
On paper, USC’s path through that realm – which could put them on a collision course with Ohio State – is actually quite feasible. It will start with 16th-seeded Texas A&M Corpus Christi at the Galen Center March 23, a team that even basketball-junkie Gottlieb has likely seen precious little film of.
The Islanders offer precious-little versatility on offense, shooting just 26.3% from three-point range on the season. Corpus Christi’s backcourt of Mireia Aguado and Paige Allen, and big Alecia Westbrook, all average double figures, but Westbrook leads the team in scoring at just 11.4 points a game. Where Corpus Christi has thrived, however, is on the other end, Royce Chadwick’s squad holding teams to 57 points a game and 35% shooting from the floor. They’re slightly undersized, their tallest player 6-foot-4 freshman Torie Sevier, but rank 10th in the nation in steals per game. The game will serve as an early test for Watkins, who’s averaged 4.2 turnovers a game and struggled all year with ball control.
If they handle Corpus Christi, USC will play the winner of 8th-seeded Kansas and 9th-seeded Michigan at Galen on Monday, March 25. Kansas has had an up-and-down season, but has hung tough against top-25 teams like Virginia Tech, Kansas State and Baylor, and 6-foot-6 center Taiyanna Jackson (12.6 ppg, 9.8 rpg, 3.1 bpg) is a tall order to challenge in the paint. Michigan has struggled recently, just 6-7 in its last 13 games, but guard Laila Phelia (16.8 ppg) can get hot quick. Kansas, ultimately, would likely be the tougher second-round opponent for USC.
Ultimately, the Portland 3 Division is a favorable draw for USC overall. Their toughest potential opponents, Ohio State, third-seeded UConn and Arizona (if they beat Auburn in a First Four matchup for the eleventh seed) are on the opposite side of the bracket. It’s not nearly as imposing a section as, say, Albany 2, which features No. 1 Iowa, No. 2 UCLA and No. 3 LSU.
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In a sense, USC has already been through a similar gauntlet: beating Arizona, UCLA and Stanford in the Pac-12 Tournament, as Gottlieb pointed out Sunday, was a sort-of NCAA Tournament in itself given the quality of the conference.
But Gottlieb also made that point to the program: they don’t get to carry over points from Vegas. The momentum stops, and restarts. And USC, now, has to prepare to defend a top-seeded status rather than earn it.
“That mentality for us hasn’t gone anywhere,” Marshall said, “because we’re still a competitive team, and we’re still looking out to come and compete, whether we’re playing another top seed or a lower seed.”
USC vs. Texas A&M Corpus Christi
When: Saturday, 1:30 p.m.
Where: Galen Center
TV/radio: ESPN/790 AM