USC women's basketball surges to No. 3 ranking after Pac-12 championship

When USC hired Lindsay Gottlieb as women's basketball coach three years ago, sure, there were hopes that she might be the one to return the storied program to its previous heights atop the sport.

And yet, to see it come to fruition so quickly feels like a storybook season beyond expectation for these Trojans.

While they still have a long way to go to match the national championship squads of the early 1980s, this Trojans team just won the program's second-ever Pac-12 tournament title with a 74-61 upset over top-seeded, No. 2-ranked Stanford on Sunday at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

With a 26-5 record, USC has its most wins since the 1993-94 season, it now has a No. 3 national ranking that is the program's highest since 1986 (its last Final Four season) and it has the spotlight-drawing star power that those 1980s-90s Trojans team did, with freshman phenom JuJu Watkins leading the way.

Now, the Trojans have a final chapter to write in the NCAA tournament to determine just how this season will ultimately be remembered.

"I think we've always had the belief, but then to just see it play out in real time is really joyous. We talked about now we're going to be bonded forever as champions, we're really grateful for the attention that brings to USC women's basketball and the incredible women that came before us and now this group," Gottlieb said. "But I think our secret sauce these last couple weeks has been playing with joy and a lightness to us but at the same time an urgency knowing that if you lose, you go home. That combination is what we're going to need to continue to capture even as the stakes get even higher in the NCAA tournament."

The program had made just one NCAA tournament appearance since 2006 before now making it to March Madness in back-to-back seasons. After a first-round exit last year, this time USC will likely play host to the first two rounds and awaits its official tournament draw to be revealed during the selection show next Sunday night.

What made the Trojans' Pac-12 championship win over Stanford especially impressive is that they showed again this team is about much more than one singular generational talent.

Watkins, the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year and second-leading scorer in the country (27.0 points per game) behind only Iowa superstar Caitlin Clark, received waves of defensive attention from the Cardinal and managed only 9 points on 2-of-15 shooting.

And yet it didn't matter for the Trojans, as McKenzie Forbes poured in 26 points, Kayla Padilla added 13 and Rayah Marshall had 10 points and 18 rebounds.

"I'm elated, I'm overwhelmed. There's nothing more gratifying as a coach than getting to watch your players celebrate because they all put in so much work," Gottlieb said.

Gottlieb emphasized the growth that's come with that work, as Marshall (10.2 PPG, 10.5 RPG) and reserves Kayla Williams, Clarice Akunwafo and Taylor Bigsby are the only players who returned to the roster with significant experience.

Forbes, who was named the Most Outstanding Player of the Pac-12 tournament, transferred in over the offseason from Harvard and is second on the team in scoring this season. Padilla came in as a transfer from Penn and fellow starter Kaitlyn Davis (6.3 PPG and 5.9 RPG) joined as a transfer from Columbia, all building around Watkins, the No. 1 recruit in the country.

"We have a lot of newness on the this team. ... So I've always said all year, we've got to be the team whose growth trajectory is more steep than anyone else's," Gottlieb said. "We've seen every game plan, we've seen everything to try to limit JuJu, and I'm not sure that a month or so ago having four or five players on her or crowding around her, with the length of Stanford's players, would have been something that we could just, 'OK, let's handle it and keep going.' But we've gotten contributions from everybody.

"I will say beyond all the stats, she is a winner and a winning player. So I don't think people realize that when they're putting together a game plan, and then it's built the confidence of everybody else. We get big shots from our guards, who knock down 3s, we get interior play -- that's been a huge part of our growth that you've got to pick your poison. We're outrebounding people, Rayah and Katie are putting up numbers and then we have shooters. It builds confidence that we know we can win in different ways."

So how far can these Trojans go in March?

Well, they've now beat a Stanford team that was No. 2 in the rankings entering last week twice in the last five weeks, they took two of three from a UCLA team now ranked No. 6, scored an early-season win over an Ohio State team now ranked No. 7 and also have wins over current top-20 foes Oregon State (No. 12) and Colorado (No. 18).

"We're going to take a couple days off and enjoy this, get our bodies right, get our minds right, and then we know we're going to be hosting but you've got to get ready to go win two really big games at home," Gottlieb said. "... It's capturing what we've had, which is the joy and the urgency all at once."