USC women’s basketball Head Coach Lindsay Gottlieb defended her choice to schedule multiple games against championship-caliber programs at Big Ten Basketball Media Day on Oct. 8, saying that in order for USC to become “the premier women’s basketball program in the country,” the squad would have to actively battle with those teams. 

However, her Trojans (10-6, 2-3 Big Ten) — who lost only two regular-season games just a year ago — have now tripled that total, causing them to fall out of the Associated Press Top 25 for the first time since the 2022-23 season. The upward trajectory they carried throughout last year seems to have hit a pothole.

Losses like a 79-51 beatdown at the hands of No. 1 UConn (17-0, 8-0 Big East) and the 80-46 mauling from No. 3 UCLA (15-1, 5-0) — the worst of Gottlieb’s career as a Trojan — have considerably slowed USC’s in-season path to joining the upper echelon of women’s basketball squads. With Big Ten play having fully arrived and March Madness quickly approaching, the Trojans will need to right the ship sooner rather than later.

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Talent showing from young players and experienced pros

Last season, USC flourished under the efforts of then-sophomore guard JuJu Watkins and the strong frontcourt duo of  Kiki Iriafen and Rayah Marshall. With Watkins out for the season and Iriafen and Marshall finding their way onto WNBA rosters last year, a new core has quickly emerged, albeit one lacking cohesion under Gottlieb’s system.

Leading the team is Jazzy Davidson, the freshman guard out of Clackamas, Oregon. Davidson runs the offense with a green light to shoot while possessing great defensive capabilities — she has the most minutes played of any Trojan and leads the team in all major cumulative stats. She also leads the Big Ten in total blocks and blocks per game, with multiple four-block games across the season.

The two-headed-transfer monster of senior guards Londynn Jones and Kara Dunn has often been representative of the squad at its best. Jones, who was a 3-point sniper at UCLA, has kept that same shooting ability at USC. She scored 28 points against Cal Poly (3-13, 1-5 Big West), the most of any Trojan in a game this season, and is tied for the 18th most treys in the Big Ten.

Meanwhile, Dunn has arguably been the team’s most valuable player; she and Davidson are the only players to have started all 16 games, and she’s consistently shown up in otherwise disappointing losses. All three of Dunn’s 20-point outbursts have come in bad USC losses — she shot 8-for-11 against No. 23 Notre Dame (12-4, 4-2 ACC), led both teams in scoring in a Jan. 6 loss against Oregon (14-4, 2-3) and dropped a season-high 27 points in Sunday’s loss to Minnesota (12-4, 3-2).

Issues abundant in Trojanland

The Trojans have shown much promise: They were ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 poll for the first ten weeks of the season and beat multiple teams by 30 or more points. Additionally, they have standout wins to their name, like a close 59-50 defeat of then-No. 21 Washington, who solidly beat then-No. 6 Michigan (14-2, 5-1) on New Year’s Day, or their snapping of then-No. 20 Nebraska’s (14-3, 3-3) 12-game win streak to open the season.

But this season’s squad has problems. Namely, they don’t have a convincing frontcourt, especially compared to last year. 

Iriafen and Marshall were the yang to Watkins’ yin: Marshall was a defensive stalwart, with the sixth-highest defensive rating in Pac-12 history and career averages of nearly 10 rebounds and 2.5 blocks to match. Iriafen, meanwhile, had a 0.525 shooting percentage over her collegiate career, which helped balance out Watkins’ extensive shot diet while still having the third-most total points in the Big Ten last year.

USC’s current starting frontcourt of junior forward Gerda Raulušaityte and sophomore forward Vivian Iwuchukwu doesn’t pack the necessary offensive or defensive punch. Neither do the Trojans’ bench forwards like redshirt freshman Laura Williams or junior Yakiya Milton, who have seen limited playing time. 

In the aforementioned UCLA matchup, the Bruins scored 46 points in the paint, with 14 of senior center Lauren Betts’s 18 points being twos; meanwhile, Raulušaityte, Iwuchukwu, Williams, Milton and sophomore transfer Dayana Mendes shot a combined 1-for-13 from the field. 

This lack of a paint presence has led the Trojans to run a very small-ball offense, driving what is arguably their biggest problem: shooting efficiency.

USC has shot the sixth-most threes in the Big Ten so far, but its 3-point percentage of 0.316 is the fourth worst in the conference. This extends to its general shooting percentage, too; the team is currently shooting at a 0.402 clip, the second worst in the Big Ten, with only Rutgers (8-9, 0-6) below them. This isn’t due to a small sample size, either, as the Trojans have taken the twelfth-most shots in the conference. 

While USC shot season-highs of 14 threes on 0.452 shooting against Minnesota on Sunday, it has also had more games shooting under 0.250 than shooting over 0.400. Simply put, the team has the ability to shoot very well, but that ability is often in flux, with a lower-than-preferred baseline. 

However, this can be partly explained by much of the team’s lack of experience with the pace of collegiate basketball. Those who do have experience, namely Jones and Dunn, haven’t experienced it under the teachings of Gottlieb. In time, they will likely gain the chemistry and confidence to shoot well in the cardinal and gold.

The Trojans still have a lot to look forward to. When they’re hitting their shots from beyond the arc, they can actively keep up with a team like UCLA — USC made six of its first eight shots from beyond the arc against the Bruins. It’s no coincidence that USC kept the score within one as late as the middle of the second quarter. 

Plus, due to the WNBA’s eligibility rules, Watkins will need to return to the Trojans for her senior year, which will likely lessen Davidson’s load and, by proxy, make the rest of the team’s jobs easier. 

Until then, though, the Trojans have a slate full of Big Ten games to play — and, maybe, a tournament to worry about. Their next game is at home against No. 12 Maryland (16-2, 4-2) on Thursday at 6 p.m.