LOS ANGELES — Among the rows of drooped heads in a silent locker room April 1, within the stunned tears that fell after a season-ending loss to UConn, a clear reality was established for USC women’s basketball: these Huskies were the standard.
They’d simply out-executed the Trojans in the second half of their Elite Eight clash a month ago, transcendent junior Paige Bueckers getting to her spots and keying UConn to an 80-73 win that slammed the brakes on USC’s NCAA Tournament run. In a season-recap conversation with the Southern California News Group a couple weeks later, coach Lindsay Gottlieb didn’t mince words, saying USC was chasing both national-champion South Carolina and UConn, “who just beat us.”
They’ll have an opportunity for a rematch now, before March even rolls around.
On Dec. 21, USC will travel to Connecticut to take on UConn as part of a two-year series agreement, this 2024 meeting set to be broadcast on FOX. It will stand as one of the most hotly-anticipated games in collegiate women’s basketball in 2024-25, USC bringing a retooled roster with transfers Kiki Iriafen and Talia Van Oelhoffen to play against the program that ended JuJu Watkins’ freshman season.
The game will take place either at UConn’s on-campus gym, the Harry A. Gamble Pavilion, or at the XL Center in Hartford, Connecticut, according to USC. In 2025-26, the Huskies will come to the Galen Center to ensure three straight years of the USC-UConn matchup, by which point Bueckers will be graduated and in the WNBA.
It’s a continued push for USC to cement themselves at the forefront of collegiate women’s basketball, with aggressive roster-building around Watkins and a move into the Big Ten that only promises increased visibility.
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