USC women’s basketball goes for improbable sweep of Stanford
The USC Trojans women’s basketball team is back in the AP top 25 for the first time since 2016 and Lindsay Gottlieb’s team appears headed to the NCAA Tournament.
The Trojans shocked the world by defeating Stanford at the Galen Center last month, and now USC gets another opportunity to score an upset against the same Cardinal team.
However, this time the game is in Palo Alto on Friday night. The 25th-ranked Trojans and third-ranked Stanford Cardinal face off.
Coming into this game, Stanford has won two in a row since losing to Washington on the road. One of those wins was against fellow top-25 Pac-12 school Arizona, in an 84-60 blowout. The Cardinal then blew out Arizona State by 32, so the Cardinals are playing well entering this game,
Since the USC game, Stanford has just one loss.
USC has won two in a row since a tight loss to Arizona, and the Trojans have won four of their last six games entering this one as they try to make a run at a top-four seed in the Pac-12 Tournament, which would bring a first-round bye.
In USC’s shocking win against Stanford, the Cardinal scored just 46 points; that happens to be the only game this year when Stanford failed to score 60 or more points.
If Lindsay Gottlieb’s team wants to upset Stanford again, the defense needs to do its job, and Palo Alto is not an easy place to play — Stanford’s only home loss this season came to No. 1 South Carolina.
No one expects USC to win here, but playing with house money gives Gottlieb and USC a chance to tinker with some lineup combinations and learn more about her bench. With Sunday’s game in Berkeley against Cal being very important for NCAA Tournament seeding purposes, this game against Stanford could give USC a chance to reduce starter minutes, increase bench minutes, and provide a change of pace before the Pac-12 and NCAA Tournaments.
Let’s see if USC can shock the world once again.
