{"id":148245,"date":"2026-01-24T22:13:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T22:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/148245\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T22:13:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T22:13:08","slug":"uscs-lindsay-gottlieb-says-struggling-trojans-are-right-there-despite-losing-five-of-six","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/148245\/","title":{"rendered":"USC’s Lindsay Gottlieb says struggling Trojans are ‘right there’ despite losing five of six"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Her USC<\/a> team might have dropped five of its last six games, more than it lost all of last season, while the road ahead could be something of an uphill climb, with four of its final 10 games against top-12 teams.<\/p>\n

But by no means, at 11-8, is coach Lindsay Gottlieb<\/a> ready to wave the white flag on USC\u2019s season or its NCAA tournament hopes. Quite the contrary, in fact.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a ton of season left,\u201d Gottlieb said confidently Friday, two days before USC was set to face off with No. 7 Michigan in Ann Arbor. The Trojans had just fallen short against Michigan State 74-68<\/a>, the night before.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know we\u2019re right there,\u201d the coach continued. \u201cBut right there isn\u2019t good enough. We\u2019re not satisfied with that. But for this team, if we continue to figure the things out that are keeping us from getting over the hump, you know, then we think that we can do some damage.\u201d<\/p>\n

It certainly seemed that way at the start of January, when the Trojans were 10-3 and appeared to have found some sort of stride without injured superstar JuJu Watkins<\/a>. But the void she\u2019d left in USC\u2019s lineup became particularly noticeable in the new year, as a blowout loss to UCLA, the largest defeat of Gottlieb\u2019s tenure, left USC reeling. Sophomore wing Kennedy Smith<\/a> went down with an injury after that, and USC blew a fourth-quarter lead to Oregon<\/a> a few nights later. In three of their next four games \u2014 against Minnesota, Maryland and Michigan State \u2014 USC failed in some fashion to deliver down the stretch.<\/p>\n

Yet none of those losses, Gottlieb points out, has been all that detrimental to the Trojans\u2019 tournament resume. Not yet, at least. USC still sits at No. 25 in the NET rankings, thanks to its grueling nonconference schedule to start the season. The Trojans are 9-1 in games against Quad 2, 3 and 4 opponents, although they are 2-7 against top-tier opponents currently ranked as Quad 1.<\/p>\n

That trend can\u2019t hold if USC hopes to make the NCAA tournament for the fourth consecutive season under Gottlieb, a streak that USC\u2019s women\u2019s basketball program hasn\u2019t matched since Cheryl Miller walked the sideline. But following Sunday\u2019s matchup with Michigan, USC will have to contend with another top-10 team when Iowa comes to Galen Center.<\/p>\n

The schedule should get easier after that, with matchups through February against Rutgers (9-10), Northwestern (8-11), Indiana (11-9) and Penn State (7-13), all of which rank in the bottom third of the conference. Yet the margin for error through that stretch, considering USC\u2019s eight losses, is razor thin.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur whole mindset is only looking forward,\u201d guard Kara Dunn<\/a> said. \u201cWe have so many opportunities ahead to turn things around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of those opportunities of late have been on account of Dunn, who has been dynamic since the start of the new year. She\u2019s averaging more than 24 points over USC\u2019s last five.<\/p>\n

It was precisely the role she\u2019d envisioned when she committed to Gottlieb and USC, in search of a more free-flowing, pro-style offense. But it would take some adjusting, similar to how it took time for transfer forward Kiki Iriafen<\/a> to settle into the offense last season. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was just trying to find where I fit,\u201d Dunn said.<\/p>\n

\"USC <\/p>\n

USC guard Kara Dunn has found her stride during the new year, averaging more than 24 points over their last five games.<\/p>\n

(Ronaldo Bolanos \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

She found it just in time, with freshman Jazzy Davidson mired in a multi-game slump. Davidson has still been one of the best freshmen in college basketball this season, but she\u2019s shooting only 38% from the field this season. Smith, the Trojans\u2019 third-leading scorer, has been even streakier at 35%. Both have struggled especially from the three-point line in recent games, shooting a combined four of 26 over their last three games.<\/p>\n

Fortunately for USC, Dunn has stepped up from deep in their absence, hitting 44% of her three-point attempts over the last four to keep the Trojans afloat on offense. Against Purdue, in USC\u2019s only win in January, Dunn dropped a season-high 29.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really just remembering who I am and who I was previously,\u201d Dunn said. \u201cI\u2019m used to scoring in high numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n

USC will need her contributions to continue if it hopes to make any noise come March. There\u2019s little Gottlieb can do now about the limitations in USC\u2019s frontcourt, which has relied all season on a four-way rotation at center. But Davidson continues to make progress in her first season, while Dunn\u2019s emergence has helped take pressure off the Trojans\u2019 impressive freshman.<\/p>\n

As Gottlieb gathered her team for a meeting on Friday, she urged her players to learn from the hard lessons of the last three weeks. Now was no time to sound any alarm bells, she assured, with hopes that they stick together from here.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only way through a storm is not to pull off of the road,\u201d Gottlieb said, \u201cbut to keep going through it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Her USC team might have dropped five of its last six games, more than it lost all of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[19356,73614,69010,2424,69224,423,63206,48,52,51,47,50,49,11860,795,18158,278,315,73613,23138,3533],"class_list":["post-148245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-blowout-loss","tag-davidson","tag-dunn","tag-friday","tag-galen-center","tag-game","tag-gottlieb","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-matchup","tag-michigan","tag-no","tag-season","tag-time","tag-top-12-team","tag-trojans","tag-usc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}