USC women's basketball coach Lindsay Gottlieb was asked Sunday if she felt her program was ahead of schedule after earning a No. 1 seed for the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1986.

"I've thrown all schedules out the window," she said. "For this team, this is what we've earned, but we also know no one's crowned anything except the number in front of your name. We were picked sixth in our conference, we had a 2 in front of us at the Pac-12 championship. I think the No. 1 thing for us is to approach everything with the type of mentality that's gotten us this far, and that will not change no matter the number says."

There's no denying the significance of what these Trojans have accomplished, though.

They knocked off two top-10 opponents on the way to the program's first Pac-12 tournament championship since 2014, beating No. 7 UCLA in the semifinals and No. 2 Stanford in the title game. At 26-5, they've already recorded the most wins for the program since the 1993-94 season. And, yeah, Sunday made official what already should have been clear -- this team is one of the true top contenders in the country entering the NCAA tournament.

USC will host the first two rounds, opening up Saturday at 1:30 p.m. PT in Galen Center against No. 16 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (23-8), which is making its first ever NCAA tournament appearance.

The winner will play the winner of No. 8 Kansas and No. 9 Michigan with the victor advancing in the Portland 3 Regional.

"It's crazy, it's surreal. I think we earned it, but I've been in this business long enough to know these things are hard. For our program, it's a big step," Gottlieb said. "We know the work starts now, but we're going to take a moment and recognize the work our players did to get us here and the administration. It's a really cool moment and then we go forward from here. ...

"It doesn't guarantee you anything. Nobody's going to give you points, nobody's going to give you wins, but to kind of give back to this community that's been incredible to us this year -- we've had great fan support -- we're super happy to be able to stay at home and kickoff our NCAA tournament here at Galen."

USC is of course led by freshman phenom JuJu Watkins, who has emerged as one of the biggest stars in the sport already, ranking second nationally in scoring at 27 points per game (behind only Iowa superstar Caitlin Clark).

Rayah Marshall anchors the Trojans in the frontcourt, averaging 10.2 PPG and 10.5 rebounds per game, and veterans McKenzie Forbes (13.5 PPG), Kayla Padilla (7.9 PPG) and Kaitlyn Davis (6.3 PPG and 5.9 RPG) round out the lineup.

Forbes was named the Most Outstanding Player at the Pac-12 tournament after she scored 26 points in that 74-61 championship game win over Stanford, which was a statement of sorts for the Trojans to show they had answers if an opponent went all-in on trying to limit Watkins' offensive opportunities.

"I think in some ways the momentum of the Pac-12 tournament stops in that it's a start-over. And we've said that to our players -- no one gets to carryover points from the Pac-12 tournament, but I think the lessons that we've learned from that are things that continue through," Gottlieb said. ".... Outrebounding two of the best rebounding teams in the country, about handling pressure, about being the toughest team out there, those are the things that carry over. And if we do those things then momentum will continue, but we need to get back to work and get ready to win the games in front of us."

Gottlieb also talked about what it means to get to start the tournament in front of USC's home fans, a group that has grown through the course of this breakout season for the program.

"I was told women's basketball can't draw crowds in LA. I was told Friday nights are tough. I was told you can't sell this place out, and we've continued to kind of knock down those narratives," she said. "The people here are responsible for it -- the team for bringing people in and the people who continue to show up. So it's really meaningful for to us."