Los Angleles, CA- University of Southern California got called out by University of South Carolina fans as they declared game in the first “real SC” face off among women’s collegiate basketball as SC fans begin to call the first word of their surname in the final quarter at Crypto Arena to take home the title by overpowering a relative undersized, inexperienced USC team without their past leading scorer and superstar shooting guard, JuJu Watkins, whom presence might not have made a difference tonight when it came to being out rebounded by 24 to lose 69-52 on a rare rainy evening in Southern California.
“We want these kind of games,” USC head coach Lindsay Gottlieb said.
Amid the dreadful, rainy weather and the dreaded absence of your program’s best player missing, the Women of Troy still exuded fight to compete with a team ranked number 2 and could arguably be number 1 throughout three periods, keeping it competitive before the Gamecocks took it away in the final period.
“Credit South Carolina for doing what they do really well. Obviously they destroyed us on the board, coach Gottlieb said. “They’re good in transition and they’re good defensively.”
Once the Women of Troy loss the opening tip, within 30 seconds of the game, the Gamecock’s lone returning starter, point guard Raven Johnson drove to the lane to score and put South Carolina first on the scoreboard for the lead that they maintained most of the first half.
“I saw some things in our team I really liked I thought we had some fight,” coach Gottlieb said. “I’m excited about what’s next for us but disappointed with the fact that we couldn’t hold on and be a little more competitive down the stretch tonight.”
Women of Troy also showed how pose and prepared they are to expect a variety of contributors this season to make up their offense as shown tonight when freshmen star Jazzy Davidson picked up two early fouls putting a wrench in her team’s early offensive plans.
“I don’t think we tried to play slow,” coach Gottlieb said. ”I think this is a team that can run and create mismatches for people and I don’t think it was pace, I think it was the lack of ability to put the ball in the basket. So yeah we want to be faster…when our three starts dropping that’ll obviously help production as well.”
Both teams struggled in the first half to put the ball in the basket, with SC Women of Troy hitting one more basket than Gamecocks as Malia Samuels hit a running floater to cut down Gamecocks’ lead to two, 32-30 at halftime.
Neither teams improved much on their offensive efficiency but the Gamecocks took full advantage of grabbing almost anything coming off the glass with their dominating size.
“I’m going to give a lot of credit to Madina [Okot] Gamecocks Head Coach Dawn Staley said. “She was where she needed to be and just from a confidence standpoint, knowing that we need her and knowing that she can execute a game plan — she is part of us finding our identity.”
Four players for Gamecocks scored in double figures including two of them with double-doubles. Joyce Edwards led her team with 17 points and 10 rebounds. While Tessa Johnson and fellow backcourt mate Johnson scored 14 apiece with Raven collecting 11 rebounds to go with 4 dimes. Ta’Niya Latson heated up in the second half to finish the game with 12 points.
Sophomore Kennedy Smith led Women of Troy with 12 points, while senior-transfer Kara Dunn had 10. Junior Malia Samuels and Freshman Jazzy Davidson added eight and six points, respectively.
University of South Carolina (4-0) takes the first “Real SC” title and University of Southern California (2-1) will look to take this game as a thermometer to check early their team’s temperature for the rest of the season.
