No. 4 UConn and No. 7 USC find themselves in a similar situation heading into Saturday’s much-anticipated matchup at the XL Center in Hartford. Both teams have an established star guard — Paige Bueckers for UConn and JuJu Watkins for USC. Both have an elite post player to balance the attack — Sarah Strong for UConn and Kiki Iriafen for USC. And both have just one loss on the season — against Notre Dame.
When the two teams from opposite sides of the country square off on Saturday at 8 p.m. ET (FOX), it will be about much more than just JuJu vs. Paige. It will also be a measuring stick indicating where each team stands on the eve of conference play.
“After our first couple of games, when people would ask me what I thought of our team I would tell them to ask me at Christmas time, because I felt this December stretch was going to be really telling,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma said after his team’s win over Iowa State on Tuesday. “It’s either going to be telling in a good way, or telling in a lousy way.”
And then there’s the big picture: Two programs steeped in history, meeting midway through their modern resurgences. UConn has been the program since it won its first NCAA championship in 1995 and has maintained that status through 10 more titles. But the Huskies haven’t won a title since 2016, something Auriemma has been candid about trying to rectify. Meanwhile, USC’s history is more distant, with back-to-back national titles in 1983 and 1984. The program hasn’t been to the Final Four since 1986. Coach Lindsay Gottlieb arrived in 2021 to recapture past glory. With local star Watkins choosing to stay home, the rebuild happened much faster than anyone anticipated. “I’m not going to lie, I did not think this would happen this soon,” Gottlieb said after the Trojans won the Pac-12 Tournament last season. “But I guess timing is everything and I’m glad that we’re here.”
That win propelled the Trojans into the NCAA Tournament, but their efforts to return to the Final Four ended when they ran into — you guessed it — UConn in the Elite Eight. Auriemma’s squad was knocked out by Iowa in the Final Four. Both programs are hoping for happier endings this season.
For UConn the off-season was all about getting healthy. Injuries have hampered the program’s last two seasons, with games even being postponed due to lack of players in 2023. The Huskies are still a work in progress. The former No. 1 recruit in 2021, Azzi Fudd, came back this season after a year spent rehabbing an ACL tear, only to be sidelined a few games later with a knee sprain. She’s questionable for Saturday’s game. Redshirt senior Aubrey Griffin, who also missed last season with a torn ACL, has yet to return and sophomore Ayanna Patterson is undergoing season-ending shoulder surgery. Despite the continued injury struggles, UConn still has a solid roster headed up by Bueckers and Strong.
Women’s College Basketball Top 25 Rankings
Eden Laase’s rankings for Week 11. Ohio State slides and three new teams move in.For USC, the mission has been about finding pieces to put around Watkins. Last season’s run was aided by three Ivy League grad transfers in McKenzie Forbes, Kayla Padilla and Kaitlyn Davis. This season, Gottlieb added the country’s most coveted transfer in Iriafen, who came from Stanford following Tara VanDerveer’s retirement, and Oregon State’s All-Pac 12 guard Talia von Oelhoffen. Gottlieb rounded out the roster with three All-American freshmen: Kennedy Smith, Kayleigh Heckel and Avery Howell.
“I’m trying to figure out how to embrace the talent we have and the expectations that we have,” Gottlieb told the LA TImes earlier this season. “That’s what I would do every year, no matter what the circumstance was. But things that are coming at me are different than they were even six months ago.”
Now, both teams are trying to figure out how their rosters fit together. Losing to Notre Dame exposed the same weakness: Who is the third scoring option? Strong and Bueckers can be counted on to score in double-digits for UConn and so can Watkins and Iriafen for USC. After that, offense has been inconsistent.
In the 101-68 win over Iowa State on Tuesday, the Huskies found a potential third option in Ashlynn Shade. The sophomore, who is known for her three-point shooting, went 7 of 10 from beyond the arc and finished with a career-high 27 points. Against Notre Dame, Shade didn’t score a point. If she can be consistent, then UConn goes to another level.
“I think we are going to need three legitimate, big-time scorers the entire season,” Auriemma said. “Where they come from, it doesn’t really matter to me.”
In its loss to Notre Dame, USC got 24 points from Watkins and 15 from Iriafen, but just 22 from the rest of the team, including zero off the bench. Since then, USC hasn’t been tested, but von Oelhoffen has found more consistency, scoring in double-figures in four of her team’s last six games. At Oregon State, she averaged 12.3 points per game while shooting 35.3 percent from beyond the arc. This season her numbers are down to 7.7 and 31.3. If the Trojans are to build on last season’s Elite Eight, they will need to find a third option from among von Oelhoffen, senior center Rayah Marshall (8 points per game), or freshman Kayleigh Heckel (7.5 points per game). Having a solid game against UConn is a good place to start.
The same goes for UConn in its quest for another national title. Playing well against USC could be the start of something special.
“Saturday night is going to be a whole different kind of matchup,” Auriemma said. “The more times we get tested, the better we are going to be. We are either going to pass those tests and get better, or we are going to fail some of those tests and we are going to learn from them. But the key is, you’ve got to be tested.”
