Los Angeles, CA- No. 1 seed USC started off sluggish, taking their time nearly the entire first half to shake off rust possibly from only practicing the past two weeks before returning to their usual game form and torching the number one defensive efficiency team in the country, No.16 seed UNC Greensboro.
The Women of Troy began the game scrappy, slowly building up a 8-0 lead with senior Rayah Marshall scoring the game’s first basket, followed by a side step three from senior Talia Von Oelhoffen, then a block by Marshall that led to an open court drive by Trojan’s leading scorer, JuJu Watkins, en route to her scoring 22 points for a incontestable victory, 71-25.
Watkins scored 11 of her 22 points in the first half of second leading regular season scorer sophomore debut at the big dance despite an early knick to her finger or wrist from an inerrant hard pass by freshman Kennedy Smith as the Trojans led only by 17, 28-11 before winning their March Madness opener at home in front of a large crowd.
“We had some rust to get off so hopefully that’s all done with and we can head into the next matchup with our best versions of ourselves and play our game,” Watkins said at the post game conference about others concerns of her seemingly minor injuries during the game. “I’m confident in my team regardless if I am in the game or not so it’s just a matter of impacting the game as much as I can.”
Watkins also grabbed eight rebounds and three steals in less than 30:00 minutes of play. Senior KiKi Iriafen finished with 13 points and 13 rebounds in her first March Madness tournament with USC. Marshall headed her team’s full court trap press most of the game and still managed to help her team’s defense with 7 blocks around the rim.
“I think I say this all the time about Rayah but she really is the anchor of our team, she is an unsung hero who has been here all four years with Coach [Lindsay] Gottlieb,” Iriafen said.
Marshall along with the Women of Troy’s bench stepped up big in the team’s defensive pressure as well as on the other end as freshman Kayleigh Heckel came in the second half with a nifty reverse layup, causing her teammates along with a not so unruly crowd to erupt.
“We talked about it halftime, I mean they have a high defensive efficiency, I think number one in the country that probably disrupted us a little bit, ” Heckel said. “I think the biggest thing for us was fixing ourselves as we were kind of beating ourselves in the first half. My teammates are super supportive of me and I feel like anyone that does anything good on the court we’re always hyping them up in any way possible.”
Freshman Nya Smith led UNC Greensboro with seven points. The Spartans shot 13% from the floor and shot 58% from the free throw line. This was the Spartans second appearance in the tournament and first in 27 years. Coach Gottlieb credited the Spartans’ defense for her team’s slow start and praised them for a winning season.
“I want to congratulate UNC Greensboro and their coach Trina Patterson,” Coach Gottieb said.”It’s really hard to win a conference and regular season tournament title so they earned their way here.”
USC dominated in the paint, scoring 40 points and 32 points off 23 UNC Greensboro turnovers.The Women of Troy went on a 16-0 run with six different scorers.This led to Coach Gottlieb clearing her bench in the fourth, preparing her star players for perhaps a long tournament run with crucial rest after exerting huge energy in their full court zone press.
“We’re fortunate that we were able to sit all the starters with about six and half minutes left,” Coach Gottlieb said. “Likewise I think we earned the right to rest some people.”
