LOS ANGELES — Through their captivating run to the Elite Eight, the lasting high point from USC women’s basketball’s 2023-24 season may have been the net that fell in Las Vegas in the spring, winners of the final Pac-12 Tournament in a conference that had rarely been better.
An hour after beating Stanford in the title game March 10, McKenzie Forbes, Kayla Padilla and Rayah Marshall sat with head coach Lindsay Gottlieb in a haze of emotion at the postgame podium, Gottlieb pointing out this was a group that’d be remembered forever.
“These guys will be off running the world, and whatever they’re doing next,” Gottlieb pointed to graduating seniors Forbes and Padilla, “but Rayah will try and take the next thing to the Big Ten and say, ‘Let’s be the first ones to win the new Big Ten.’”
After an offseason landing Stanford transfer Kiki Iriafen and Oregon State transfer Talia von Oelhoffen, USC has a better sense of what that “new Big Ten” looks like, as the Big Ten released its home-and-away opponents for all teams in the conference Tuesday. The Trojans will play an 18-game schedule in conference play, facing each Big Ten team only once with a single exception: UCLA, who they’ll play both home and away in 2024-25.
A major highlight for USC will be a trip to Iowa, after the Trojans came a game away last year from a JuJu Watkin vs. Caitlin Clark matchup in the Final Four. Clark is gone to the WNBA’s Indiana Fever, but the Hawkeyes are coming off a run to the NCAA Tournament title game and imported star Villanova transfer Lucy Olsen (23.3 ppg last year). USC will also host Ohio State at home, which it played in Las Vegas to kick off their 2023-24 slate.
Here’s the full breakdown of USC’s Big Ten home-and-away opponents for 2024-25, with exact scheduling to be released at a later date.
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HOME (last year’s record)
Illinois (19-15, 8-10 conference)
Northwestern (9-21, 4-14)
Michigan (20-14, 9-9)
Michigan State (22-9, 12-6)
Ohio State (26-6, 16-2)
Penn State (22-13, 9-9)
Minnesota (20-16, 5-13)
Nebraska (23-12, 11-7)
AWAY
Indiana (26-6, 15-3)
Purdue (15-19, 5-13)
Iowa (34-5, 15-3)
Wisconsin (15-17, 6-12)
Maryland (19-14, 9-9)
Rutgers (8-24, 2-16)
Washington (16-15, 6-12 Pac-12)
Oregon (11-21, 2-16 Pac-12)