LOS ANGELES — It was as though the NCAA Women’s Basketball Selection Committee saw what USC planned to wear to Sunday’s Selection celebration at Galen Center – Nike T-shirts that read: “NOTHING EASY” – and took it literally.
Because when Trojans coach Lindsay Gottlieb saw what the committee drew up for her team, you better believe she took that personally.
JuJu Watkins and USC garnered a No. 1 seed, as everyone expected, starting in the first round Saturday with No. 16 UNC Greensboro and potentially bound for the Spokane Regional for the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight.
But what irked Gottlieb, and rightly so, was that out of the four No. 1 seeds, the Trojans fell to the fourth.
Ahead of them, No. 1 overall seed UCLA, “as they should be,” Gottlieb stressed.
But the Bruins were immediately followed by South Carolina and Texas, even though USC beat UCLA two of three times this season and South Carolina lost to the Bruins 77-62.
And even though South Carolina lost by 29 points to UConn, which USC beat in a non-conference showdown in Connecticut.
And even though Texas, like USC, lost to Notre Dame and also lost to South Carolina twice.
How USC slipped behind both of those teams is a mystery.
“I don’t understand people who make decisions in women’s basketball and why they do what they do, none of it makes sense to me,” said Gottlieb, who wasn’t just perplexed but admittedly and surprisingly agitated – and speaking for a whole lot of us.
Any of us who looked at the bracket and immediately saw, among whatever other bracket-building shenanigans got revealed, a particularly heinous affront to women’s basketball’s growing audience.
Sitting at No. 2 in USC’s corner of the bracket: UConn.
That means we’re going to lose either Watkins, everyone’s national player of the year, or Paige Bueckers, one of the game’s biggest and most-beloved stars and presumptive No. 1 pick in the next WNBA Draft, before the Final Four.
One of the two biggest stars in the game is guaranteed to go home before the college game’s grandest stage. Good people on the committee, what are you doing?!
And why? UConn is 31-3, and the Huskies’ only three losses came against USC (28-3), as well as championship contender Notre Dame and their historic rival, Tennessee. They don’t deserve possibly to be meeting the Trojans so early, either.
Women’s basketball’s decision-makers haven’t done something so dumb, well, since last year.
Remember when they slotted a potential rematch of the previous season’s historic national championship – Caitlin Clark and Iowa vs. Angel Reese and LSU – in the Elite Eight … and that was after LSU got past UCLA, then a dangerous No. 2 seed?
“That, Gottlieb said, “was a little wild too.”
Because, as she asked: “Wouldn’t you think they’d want the best television ratings in Tampa at the Final Four?”
It was a rhetorical question, but I’ll answer it anyway: Yes! Yes, we sure would! Especially when that’s what is merited.
“I never thought I’d be a one seed and feel disrespected, I just thought there would be very little chance that we’d be the No. 4 overall No. 1,” said Gottlieb, who didn’t hold back, wavering between peeved and diplomatic, the proverbial angel and devil on her shoulders going at it.
“This is not an arrogance of any kind, there’s a lot of really good teams,” she said, with a nod to a field that doesn’t feature a single undefeated or even a one-loss team for just the second time in 19 years. “And you have to play the first game in front of you and earn your way from there.”
But, really: “This was not on my bingo card.”
Will the draw fuel her team? Should we be pitying UNC Greensboro and probably whoever emerges from No. 8 Cal vs. No. 9 Mississippi State for the spite-sharpened USC buzzsaw they’re about to meet? “If there’s a little extra motivation for a team that’s already a No. 1 seed,” Gottlieb said, “we’re gonna have it.”
Or is could it cost the Trojans? Cut them down prematurely? Either in an Elite Eight game that should be a Final Four game, or earlier in the especially thorny thicket that’s facing them as the lowest top seed? Could just feeling slighted slice into their focus?
After all, as bracketologist Charlie Creme told ESPN’s audience Sunday: UConn will have an experience advantage if they do meet again: “If you’re USC, you’re still a little bit new to this game.”
That statement got the 1,000 fans who showed up at Galen Center on Sunday to cheer their Trojans booing.
And it drew a wry smile from Watkins, who, of course, chose to stay home in L.A. and come to USC to change the narrative around women’s basketball at the school.
I won’t try to predict the response from Gottlieb’s team, but it felt noteworthy that her players didn’t explode in cheers and dance the way most teams on the Selection Show broadcast did. Instead they registered their fate with business-like expressions, wearing game faces already, Mamba-like.
“People have their own opinions,” Watkins said. “We know what we’re capable of.”