USC heads home from March Madness looking at an offseason of change

By Canadian Press on March 31, 2025.

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — For the second straight year, USC’s season ended against UConn in the Elite Eight. And this time around, the Trojans didn’t have Juju Watkins to help them fight back.

Watkins, the Big Ten Player of the Year, was back home in Los Angeles watching the No. 2 seed Huskies roll past the top-seeded Trojans 78-64 in the women’s NCAA Tournament after sustaining season-ending ACL tear in the second round.

Without Watkins, USC managed to grind out a 67-61 win over No. 5 Kansas Stat e in the Sweet 16 on Saturday, but a battle-tested UConn team proved too much to handle.

Paige Bueckers, who had 28 points in last year’s Elite Eight victory over the Trojans, took it a step further in this year’s tournament meeting, scoring 31 points to send the Huskies to a second straight Final Four.

“UConn did a really good job defensively, and obviously we’re still getting used to not having someone on the floor who can just draw three (defenders) all of a sudden,” USC head coach Lindsay Gottlieb said of Watkins’ absence.

Facing UConn in the tournament has been in the back of Gottlieb’s mind since the teams met for a regular-season matchup in December. Shortly after Watkins scored 25 to lead the Trojans to a 72-70 win in that game, UConn head coach Geno Auriemma texted Gottlieb and said he hoped the teams would face off in the Final Four.

“I was at a Christmas party or something, and I got a text from Geno two days after we had just beaten them, and he said, ‘Hey, I was just thinking about what a great win that was for you and your program, and I love your team, and hopefully we meet up in Tampa.’”

While the matchup arrived before the Final Four, and didn’t go USC’s way, Gottlieb had a lot of praise for her players. From the moment last year’s tournament run ended in the same round, Gottlieb had made one thing clear: The standard for USC women’s basketball had changed.

“From the second we lost at this round last year, I said, ‘The bar has been raised, the standards have been raised, the expectations have been raised,’” Gottlieb said she told her team. “And even though we’ve lost at the same point and stage, I think our team 100% delivered on raising that bar and raising that standard.”

Gottlieb and her staff will spend the offseason rebuilding a roster that is set to lose several players, some of whom are projected to get selected in the WNBA Draft on April 14.

Kiki Iriafen, a 6-foot-3 forward, was projected to go within the top five after averaging 18.2 points and 8.4 rebounds, while earning All-Big Ten First Team recognition. The Los Angeles native transferred to USC this summer after three years at Stanford.

“Kiki coming here this year changed our program,” Gottlieb said. “It kind of put us in a different echelon, and I think everyone feels it.”

Talia von Oelhoffen and Rayah Marshall, two other seniors with draft potential, are also expected to depart from the program. Von Oelhoffen transferred this summer from Oregon State, while Marshall is a four-year Trojan.

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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here.

Henry Krueger, The Associated Press

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