USC women’s basketball has lost four straight. Are the Trojans’ NCAA Tournament hopes in jeopardy?

ballervisions 2026年1月16日

Los Angeles – Jazzy Davidson started Thursday’s game against Maryland like he was shot out of a cannon. The woman was attacked, eager to end USC’s three-game losing streak and get the Trojans back to .500 in Big Ten play.

He exploded for 12 points in the first quarter and tallied two more on assists. Those would be Davidson’s only points of the night, though. USC’s eight-point lead in the first half led to another loss, 62-55, after the Trojans had blown 13 points against Minnesota and 17 points against Oregon in their previous two games. Their four-game losing streak is the first since 2021-22, the last time the program failed to make the NCAA Tournament.

“No one wants to be in a situation where things are difficult, but the only option is to find it and fight your way through it,” said coach Lindsay Gottlieb.

USC is 10-7, 2-4 in the Big Ten, and has already lost more games this season than it has since JuJu Watkins arrived on campus. Watkins won’t be back to help this year’s team, and the Trojans need to win more games than lose all the way to secure a fourth straight berth in the big dance.

USC’s defense is up to par, ranking in the 90th percentile nationally entering Thursday’s game, according to CBB Analytics. The Trojans held the Terrapins, who scored 87 points per game, to 62 and attempted 21 more field goals than their opposition. They have a hard time keeping teams out because of their size, but the problem is the bad end, where everything is a challenge.

Davidson’s shooting struggles are the tip of the iceberg. The freshman is a great defensive player and can put up points quickly in transition. He leads the Big Ten in blocks (2.5 per game) and adds another 1.8 steals per contest, and he’s putting those gifts to good use. When the pace slows down, and defenses get into the yard, it’s hard to get buckets. Davidson is shooting 35 percent from the field in Big Ten play, and 28.3 percent from beyond the arc. After a hit by Davidson in the opening frame, Maryland went to the zone and forced Davidson to punt; he shot 0 for 14 over the final three quarters, missing seven 3-pointers in the stretch.

There isn’t enough offensive talent on the roster to make life easy for Davidson. USC is shooting 39.5 percent from the field and leaving points on the table by making only 67.6 percent of its free throws. Kara Dunn is the only player who changes even at an average rate for her position; his 21 points on Thursday were the Trojans’ only consistent source for much of the game.

This sad news was added to the injury of Kennedy Smith, who was listed as day-to-day, but missed three games in ten days. Gottlieb said the sophomore’s return will be over soon. At the moment, his absence has been felt especially in the execution of the latest game. USC hasn’t gotten the look it wanted in recent games after being shut out against the Ducks, Gophers, or Terrapins. The Trojans are hopelessly undermanned without Smith on the wing, playing under-5-foot-6 guards together in Londynn Jones and Malia Samuels. That puts them at risk on the defensive glass and allows bigger defenders to crowd Davidson on the floor.

Many of the problems facing USC were to be expected; they are structural flaws in a lineup that is missing Watkins this season and has been reduced in the transfer window by the departures of Avery Howell and Kayleigh Heckel. A promising start to the season, led by Davidson’s fourth-quarter rally against NC State, may have given the team false hope that a single-talented freshman can write over some roster flaws, like Watkins in 2023-24. But Davidson isn’t the breakout scorer that Watkins is, and the defensive toughness can’t make up for the Trojans’ constant drought.

It begs the question of what USC should be trying to accomplish in 2025-2026. Watkins will be back next season, and Davidson will slide into a utility role that allows him to be effective, especially with the arrival of No. 1 for renting Saniyah Hall. Ideally, the Trojans will use this year to find out what they have to fill that third base.

But USC is not treating this as a gap year. Perhaps it’s the critical nature of the portal-era roster that has kept the Trojans from looking beyond this current season. However, after Davidson, the players with the highest usage rates are Dunn and Jones – two fourth-year players who will not be on the team next year. Gottlieb has given his junior slots a chance to prove themselves, but that’s a big task for developing this iteration of the team as it happens next year. It’s unclear if USC’s depth on the perimeter is beyond its starting lineup; sophomore guards Rian Forestier and Brooklyn Shamblin — part of last season’s announced recruiting class — can’t come off the bench, even if Smith is out of the lineup.

The Trojans are going through some serious growing pains with only two returning starters from last year’s Big Ten champions. They’re chasing a goal that seems out of reach, and it’s not clear they need it, given the glut of talent expected in 2026.

The Big Ten is a challenging conference that will send a double-digit number of teams to the NCAA Tournament. Every team will go quietly through the conference schedule, except maybe UCLA. But despite Gottlieb calling this period “our tough time,” this isn’t even the toughest stretch of the calendar that USC will face. After a short break against Purdue, the Trojans play three ranked opponents (Michigan State, Michigan and Iowa) to close out the month, with the first two games on the road. Things may get worse before they get better.

USC wasn’t content to let this team play the string. After sulking in anger following the loss to Oregon — the coach admitted his seniors haven’t seen him on fire in their college careers — Gottlieb was optimistic after the loss to Maryland, insisting that USC will “come out strong.”

Maybe that’s what the coach says when the season is deep, the players give their all but the results don’t come. That going through adversity should have a silver lining. Or maybe Gottlieb truly believes Smith’s return will get the Trojans moving forward and back into Big Ten contention.

The problem is that the players who are facing this pain are not the ones who will get the chance to turn it into something big next season. Dunn, Jones and Samuels are not the future of the USC program. Thursday’s loss was another indication that the Trojans aren’t putting the future as high as they should, and are still clinging to hope for what this season could have been.

This article first appeared in The Athletic.

USC Trojans, Women’s College Basketball

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