INDIANAPOLIS — They might not have seen the last of each other.
Five days after they met at the Galen Center, theUCLA and USC women’s basketball teamscould face one another on a far bigger stage.
A crosstown rivalry gamecould 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 ofthe Big Ten Tournament.
That would set up a third matchup betweenUSC and UCLAon 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 afterUSC’s 73-50 loss to UCLAon 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.
Source: California Post – Breaking California News, Photos & Videos
