The USC women’s basketball team reached the Sweet 16 for the first time in 30 years after defeating the Kansas Jayhawks 73-55 in the second round of the NCAA tournament.
“Getting to the Sweet 16 is hard and this team earned that. I couldn’t be more proud,” said Women of Troy head coach Lindsay Gottlieb. “I thought today was our team on display … I’m glad that the country got to see that.”
Trojan freshman JuJu Watkins scored 28 points, 11 rebounds, and five assists; she became the first USC player in 25 years to score over 20 points and five assists in a postseason game.
“To just fast-forward, when I’m done playing, we want it to still be a winning culture here and we come back like Cheryl (Miller) has done and Tina (Thompson) and some legends that have come back just to cheer us on,” Watkins said.
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Junior center Clarice Akunwafo made a career-high of six blocks in the matchup.
“Every time she comes in the game, I know that there’s going to be absolutely no drop off,” said senior guard McKenzie Forbes who scored 20 points in the matchup. “She’s given us that lift all season, take all the way back to UCLA at home when we didn’t even have Rayah (Marshall) and she was a beast.”
Gottlieb noted how Akunwafo, an Inglewood native, is both physically gifted she is while balancing her rigorous academic workload.
“She is premed, she has taken a ton of lab classes, and is really committed. She’s taken a really heavy load this summer and all the time,” Gottlieb said. “That’s her ultimate goal is to be a doctor and she will be a doctor but then she does this at a higher level.”
Jayhawks freshman guard S’Mya Nichols led with 22 points and senior center Taiyanna Jackson doubled her rebounding average with 18 boards.
“[Jackson is] very much needed on both ends and she’s dominant on the rebounds and we really needed that today,” Nichols said. “She had some great rebounds that we really needed, helped with our momentum and she does that every single time.”
Like in the first round, the Women of Troy started strong. Watkins scored the first seven points, aiding USC to a 17-9 advantage by the end of the first phase. The Women of Troy showed their defense prowess with four blocks and four steals in the period.
Kansas found their offensive rhythm in the second quarter by scoring points in the paint. The Jayhawks created an advantage via the boards of Jackson who finished the half with 11 rebounds.
Kansas chipped away at their deficit down to one point with 1:20 left in the third. Although the Women of Troy led the Jayhawks 46-53, Kansas outscored USC 22-20 in the phase.
The seven-point run USC went on to end the third quarter carried into the fourth. They held the Jayhawks to nine points in the final phase alone. The Women of Troy earned a 25-point benefit from turnovers by Kansas.
USC shot at 43.3 percent in three-pointers, and their 15 second-chance points also let them to victory.
The Women of Troy head to Portland to battle the Baylor Bears on March 30 at 2:30pm. USC had been playing in front of their raucous home crowd for the first two games and hopes the Trojan faithful will continue to bring the noise to the next level of the tournament at the Moda Center.
“A lot of these other schools have those long-standing fan bases that travel well,” Forbes said. “So if you can, we need you guys in Portland to come get loud for us because we’re trying to win some more games.”
