UCLA , USC women’s basketball could meet again in Big Ten Tournament

INDIANAPOLIS — They might not have seen the last of each other.

Five days after they met at the Galen Center, the UCLA and USC women’s basketball teams could face one another on a far bigger stage.

A crosstown rivalry game could be held two-thirds of the way across the country at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

All it would take is the ninth-seeded Trojans beating eighth-seeded Washington — a team USC downed by nine points on its home court in December — on Thursday in a preliminary round of the Big Ten Tournament.

That would set up a third matchup between USC and UCLA on Friday after the top-seeded Bruins (28-1) received a bye into the quarterfinal round following an unbeaten Big Ten regular season.

While that might not sound like an enticing scenario for USC (17-12) given it lost the first two games by a combined 57 points, Trojans coach Lindsay Gottlieb suggested that her team could deliver some March magic even without injured superstar JuJu Watkins.

“I still believe our team has one more level that we can get to,” Gottlieb said after USC’s 73-50 loss to UCLA on Sunday, “and I hope we see that in Indy next week, and I hope we see it in the NCAA Tournament.”

Indicating that she believed her team had already qualified for the NCAA Tournament — a claim bolstered by its impressive NET ranking of No. 22, not to mention the strength of the Big Ten — Gottlieb called the Trojans a “scary NCAA Tournament team” that was just one notch below a small top tier.

“There’s a whole bunch of other teams that are kind of not in that group,” Gottlieb said, “but they’re in another group of like, look at what’s going on, anyone can beat anyone. … We want to feel like we can beat anyone at any time, and that’s what I think this team is capable of.”

A year ago, when these programs met in the Big Ten Tournament championship game, USC led by 10 points at halftime. A victory would have given the Trojans a clean sweep of their rival after having won both meetings in the regular season.

But the Bruins started getting stops, largely holding Watkins in check, on the way to a 72-67 comeback victory. Two games later, in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, Watkins went down with a torn right knee ligament that will sideline her until next season.

The emergence of Jazzy Davidson as a possible national Freshman of the Year has made many wonder how awesome of a duo she might form alongside Watkins as the Trojans seek to regain their dominance.

“The goal,” Gottlieb said, “is to be the premier program in women’s college basketball for the next however many years I get the privilege of doing this.”

Barring a monumental reversal of fortunes, the Bruins figure to be the LA team that goes the furthest over the next month.

What amounts to a super team may also be the most driven collection of players coach Cori Close has assembled thanks to their relentless pursuit of growth and unselfishness.

“There’s gonna be adversity, and there’s gonna be someone’s different night,” Close said of her message to her players. “And it might be that you struggle that night. Someone else has your back, and all we care about is finding a way to win together. And nobody’s gonna remember whose night it was, but we’re all gonna remember that we came together to get it accomplished together.”

As evidence of her team’s ability to lock in, Close said she had prioritized stopping USC on out-of-bounds plays Sunday at the Galen Center.

What happened next? The Trojans, who led the Big Ten in points per possession in those situations, didn’t score once on those plays.

“This is the great thing about having such a high-IQ team and an experienced team,” Close said. “We gave them a lot of little tweaks that we needed to do defensively against them this time, and they really executed every one.”

As a bonus, the Bruins might get to put those same skills to use against the same team just a few days later.

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