USC women’s basketball beats Washington, is now an NCAA Tournament lock
The USC women’s basketball team entered Thursday night’s game against the Washington Huskies as a projected No. 8 seed in ESPN’s latest bracketology forecast.
Given that the Trojans entered Thursday with just three games (at minimum) before the NCAA Tournament, the Trojans’ odds of missing the Big Dance were already slim. The only possible way for USC to miss the field of 68 was to go 0-3 in these last three games and have all sorts of bad bubble developments emerge across the country. With USC slotted as an 8 seed going into this Washington game, we upgraded our assessment of the Trojans. We previously felt they might need two wins to be a lock, but the No. 8 seed projection made it clear that the Trojans would need only one more victory to be a lock for their first Big Dance since 2014.
USC won’t lose any seeding positions if it falls to Washington State on Saturday. A win over Washington would cement the Trojans in a No. 8 seeding position heading into the Pac-12 Tournament. Losing in the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament would not knock USC out of the field. Individual losses, even bad ones, don’t cause teams to fall more than two seed lines.
Beat Washington, earn lock status. That was the outlook going into Thursday’s game in the Galen Center.
Mission accomplished.
USC rolled up its sleeves and produced a familiar and typical blue-collar win over Washington, prevailing 47-43 in a rockfight. USC lost when scoring 47 against Stanford last Friday. This time, the Trojans won when scoring 47. They limited Washington to just 16 made field goals while forcing 18 turnovers. USC allowed only eight free throw attempts and blocked 11 Washington shots, six by Rayah Marshall.
Kadi Sissoko scored 19 points to lead USC. Destiny Littleton added 14, many of those points at the free throw line in the final minutes.
USC will go to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in nine years. This is a cathartic moment for the Women of Troy and a testament to the work Lindsay Gottlieb and Beth Burns have done to bring the program to this level in just two seasons.
