USC women’s basketball bench needs minutes and production vs Purdue

The USC women’s basketball team fought hard for a really good road win at Indiana on Sunday. The Trojans were pushed for 40 minutes by the Hoosiers. They were playing a morning game according to the Pacific time zone. They were rusty after a week off. Indiana was mad after losing to Illinois a few days earlier. The Indiana crowd was raucous and spirited. A lot of dynamics were working against the Trojans, so even though IU was not ranked in the top 25, that’s a quality win. It’s a win which is magnified by Ohio State not passing a similar road test at Penn State. The Buckeyes fell behind USC in the Big Ten standings. The Trojans now turn their attention to Purdue, and one key seems paramount in this upcoming contest on Wednesday.

USC women’s basketball needs a good, productive game from its bench.

Lindsay Gottlieb rode her starting five hard against Indiana. There are 200 minutes in a regulation-length game. USC’s starting five played 173 minutes, the bench just 27. Only one bench player, Kayleigh Heckel, played more than seven minutes (14). None of USC’s bench players scored a point or made a big imprint on the game. Against Purdue, a team which is much weaker than Indiana, USC should not only be able to get a lot of minutes for its bench, but also get significant production.

Keep in mind that USC has another full-week layoff after the Purdue game. The January 22 contest versus the Boilermakers is followed by a Jan. 30 game versus Minnesota, with nothing in between. If the starters played a ton of minutes against Indiana, the bench needs to really pick up the slack against Purdue and get some good work in, heading into the Minnesota game.

USC-Purdue sets up as a high-volume bench game for the Trojans. Let’s see what happens.