USC women’s basketball had a run for the ages last season. They won the final Pac-12 conference tournament and reached the Elite Eight for the first time in 30 years. Their freshman phenom, JuJu Watkins, was even better than advertised, ensuring the best is yet to come for the Trojans as they head to the Big Ten.
Swish Appeal interviewed head coach Lindsay Gottlieb to discuss the offseason moves she’s made to help improve the USC roster and the work she’s doing with Box Out Colon Cancer to spread the word about the importance of screening for colon cancer.
This is technically the offseason for college basketball, but with USC going on a late run, recruitment, a transfer portal and moving to the Big Ten, it’s been a 24/7 job for Gottlieb. She shared all the reasons why that is a good thing.
Yeah, what offseason, Right? I think we’re at a great time in women’s basketball, and the fact that people are now talking about women’s basketball after the national championship game and long before next season starts, speaks to the growth of the game. The way that NBA free agency is so hot in July, I kind of feel like women’s basketball offseason there’s a lot of interest now, which is a great thing. For me personally, I think that the excitement that was generated around USC women’s basketball really hasn’t died down, which is great.
Our players have been asked to do things in the community. We’ve been invited to various things. We were invited to the city council and got honored there, which was super cool. We went to an Angel City game and got honored on the field. JuJu was the Falconer at a LAFC game. Just a lot of really cool opportunities. That just speaks to the the growth of our program and our place in the community, which is neat.
USC stars like Watkins getting a chance to be even more involved in the community and step away from the court, even for just a brief moment, is great.
However, while USC exceeded most people’s expectations, they still fell short of the ultimate goal of winning a national title. Gottlieb discussed what she was looking for in the transfer portal to improve the roster and how Talia von Oelhoffen and Kiki Iriafen fit that mold.
We felt like we needed some veteran players. We did graduate three starters and some really impactful players and most of our senior leadership. And so we went into the portal saying we wanted a combo guard, somebody who could help ball handling and potentially play…
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