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LOS ANGELES — Everyone wants this, USC women’s basketball coach Lindsay Gottlieb figured, and so she and Notre Dame head coach Niele Ivey set about finding a national TV partner for one of the Trojans’ biggest games of the season.
In the summer, they had announced this two-year series, USC inking a deal with Notre Dame for a nonconference showdown of top-tier programs with burgeoning sophomore stars in JuJu Watkins and Hannah Hidalgo. And Gottlieb and USC had little trouble drawing an audience, as NBC picked up the game on a Saturday afternoon timeslot. The eyes of the nation, tuned to televisions across the country, were on these Trojans, so widely paraded as budding national championship contenders. The eyes of Los Angeles followed from courtside seats, with Snoop Dogg and Michael B. Jordan posted up at the Galen Center.
They watched as mighty expectations, for perhaps the first time in Gottlieb’s four-year tenure, fell well flat of reality.
In the locker room after that late-November loss, Gottlieb was brutally honest with her program. Two options could come of this game, she said then, as she later told reporters: either they would earn an early-season signature win, or they would get exposed. They shot 36% from the floor, committed 21 turnovers, and went 1 for 13 from 3-point range. In short: they got exposed.
“What I’ve seen is – the teams that have success are the ones that handle whatever comes, good and bad, better than others,” Gottlieb said, after USC’s victory over Cal Baptist on Tuesday night.
In the weeks since the Notre Dame loss, this USC team (7-1) has readjusted with flying colors, finishing its nonconference slate with three straight 30-plus-point blowouts. Gottlieb and Watkins, though, are still working out the kinks of a new-look supporting cast. And their unity will be tested, heading into an inaugural Big Ten stretch when they’ll only get one crack at a carousel of opponents, no longer in the days of facing Pac-12 opponents twice each in conference play.
“We better get ready,” Gottlieb said, after the Notre Dame loss. “Each one’s going to feel like a tournament game. We don’t get a do-over.”
Here are three storylines to watch as USC enters Big Ten play on Saturday afternoon at Oregon (7-2).
Can JuJu Watkins maintain her efficiency?
Gottlieb, repeatedly, has emphasized that she can’t quite imagine what’s on Watkins’ plate. She has become the torch-bearer of a new generation, TV networks and corporations and young kids beyond Los Angeles looking to the guard with the signature bun in her hair as a teenage icon.
And Watkins mentioned Tuesday night she had felt “anxious,” heading into this season, as she got off to a somewhat slow start in a few games when she was visibly pressing for jumpers to fall. Shot selection, at times, still remains an issue. Turnovers still pile up.
But Watkins’ efficiency, overall, has improved by leaps and bounds in her sophomore season. She is shooting 48% from the floor and 38% from behind the arc through eight games. Her defense, too, has been visible, averaging a combined 5.2 steals and blocked shots. The question, moving forward, is how often she’ll be able to leverage her gravity – as she did in a 40-point performance against winless Cal Baptist – to unlock easy baskets for Stanford transfer Kiki Iriafen and center Rayah Marshall, with Iriafen now averaging an ever-so-steady 18.4 points per game on 52% shooting.
“She’s playing with threats all over,” Gottlieb said of Watkins on Tuesday, “and she understands that.”
Kennedy Smith is USC’s X-factor
USC has plenty of firepower, offensively. But when freshman Kennedy Smith went down for a surgery in late November, it proved a massive blow to USC’s defensive identity.
In just a few games, she had already become their best on-ball defender: without her on the perimeter, Notre Dame guards Hidalgo and Olivia Miles each dropped 20 points in USC’s only loss this season. Getting Smith back soon, during conference play, would be a massive lift.
“She’s just a dog,” Watkins said of former Etiwanda High star Smith, before the start of the season. “Defensively, and offensively.”
Talia Von Oelhoffen is figuring it out
Iriafen’s “working relationship” with Watkins, as she put it Tuesday, has been an adjustment. The former Cardinal star is still learning where Watkins likes her screens. Watkins is still learning where Iriafen likes the ball on rolls to the rim. All in all, though, Iriafen has rarely hit any visible bumps in her transition to USC, scoring in double figures for eight consecutive games to start her Trojans tenure.
It didn’t come quite as easy for USC’s other transfer.
After four years dominating the ball at Oregon State, Von Oelhoffen visibly struggled with her on-court fit next to Watkins through her first two games, starting her USC career shooting a combined 1 for 10 from the floor. Since, though, she’s slowly adjusted to a new role, vacillating between a steady-handed point guard who can push the pace and an off-ball spacer.
“They both had to, really just do things differently,” Gottlieb said of Iriafen and Von Oelhoffen. “And credit to them, they’ve bought into – that’s what they want.”
No. 6 USC (7-1, 0-0 Big Ten) AT OREGON (7-2, 0-0)
When: Saturday, 1 p.m.
Where: Matthew Knight Arena, Eugene, Ore.
TV/radio: Big Ten Network, 710 AM
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