USC Womens Basketball

Scholarships first, trophies second

The programme dates to 1976, when USC began handing basketball scholarships to women — by the university's own account the first Division I side to do so. Linda Sharp took the job and built quickly, finishing her tenure 271-99 and reaching the AIAW Final Four in 1981 with the McGee twins, Paula and Pamela, in the frontcourt.

What followed was the run the rest of the sport still measures itself against. Cheryl Miller arrived in 1982, and USC won the NCAA title in 1983, beating Louisiana Tech 69-67, then retained it in 1984 with a 72-61 win over Tennessee. Miller was named tournament MVP both years. The Trojans returned to the final in 1986 and lost 97-81 to Texas. Miller went into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 1999.

Lisa Leslie came through between 1990 and 1994 and carried the line forward into the professional game. Six numbers hang in the rafters at USC: Paula McGee's 11, Tina Thompson's 14, Pamela McGee's 30, Miller's 31, Leslie's 33 and Cynthia Cooper's 44. No other women's programme on the west coast has that density of history behind it.

The long middle, and the rebuild

Marianne Stanley coached after Sharp and also ended up in the Hall of Fame; Miller herself returned to the bench from 1993 to 1995, going 44-14. Then came decades in which USC recruited well in patches and won nothing of consequence, while Connecticut, Tennessee and later South Carolina took over the top of the sport.

Lindsay Gottlieb was appointed in 2021 and is now in her sixth season. The turnaround ran through recruiting: USC reached the Elite Eight in both 2024 and 2025, seeded first on each occasion, and in the programme's first year in the Big Ten after the 2024 conference move it won the regular-season title at 31-4. That is the high-water mark Gottlieb's staff is currently trying to get back to.

The Naismith season and the knee

The 2024-25 season belonged to JuJu Watkins. She averaged 23.9 points, 6.8 rebounds, 3.4 assists, 2.2 steals and 1.8 blocks, and was named Naismith national player of the year — the third USC player to win it and the first since Leslie.

It ended in the second round of the NCAA tournament against Mississippi State, where Watkins tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her right knee. USC got to the Elite Eight without her and lost to Connecticut. She then sat out the whole of 2025-26 on a redshirt, and the programme spent a season discovering how much of its ceiling had been resting on one player.

The year without her

USC finished 2025-26 at 18-14, 9-9 in the Big Ten and tied for ninth. Washington knocked the Trojans out of the conference tournament in the second round. An at-large bid arrived as an eight seed; USC beat Clemson 71-67 in overtime, then lost 101-61 to top-seeded South Carolina. For a side that had been a one seed twice running, the gap was stark.

The roster turned over hard afterwards. Vivian Iwuchukwu left for Florida, Yakiya Milton for Clemson, Gerda Raulušaityte for Arizona, Malia Samuels for Indiana and Dayana Mendes for Miami, while Londynn Jones and Kara Dunn graduated. In came 6ft 6in centre Pania Davis from Florida State and guard Ryann Bennett from UC Davis, plus a freshman class ESPN ranked first in the country, headed by the 6ft 1in guard-forward Saniyah Hall and 6ft 4in forward-centre Sara Okeke.

Where it stands, late October 2026

USC opens the season ranked third in both the Associated Press and coaches' polls, behind South Carolina and Connecticut. Sportsbook pricing has the Trojans at +460 to win the national title, with those two at +260 each.

Watkins played her first competitive minutes in 580 days on 25 October 2026, in an exhibition against California at the Galen Center. She opened the scoring with a layup off a Kennedy Smith pass 14 seconds in and finished with 18 points, three rebounds, three steals, two assists and two blocks in 22 minutes. USC won 78-76. Hall, in an unofficial debut, led the scoring with 23 points, six rebounds and five steals; sophomore Jazzy Davidson matched Watkins on 18 points and added seven assists and six rebounds.

Neither side led by double figures. Gottlieb's assessment afterwards was that "there were some great things we did, and then some things that just didn't feel like the us that we've been practising", and she singled out three-point defence and rebounding as the jobs to fix. Watkins framed the night as a calibration exercise: "Finding my feet was really important. I think this game allowed me to kind of experience that and feel what it feels like again to be in that game atmosphere."

The route from here

The regular season starts on 2 November against UNLV at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, part of the Naismith Hall of Fame Series opening night, tipping at 1pm Pacific. Non-conference work includes South Carolina — the side that ended last season — and Baylor.

Big Ten play opens on the road at Washington on 5 December, with a trip to Wisconsin on 29 December. January brings two cross-country swings, including visits to Maryland, Rutgers, Purdue and Indiana. Michigan comes to the Galen Center on 30 January and Illinois on 2 February. The Crosstown Showdown at UCLA falls on 7 February, followed by Iowa on 9 February, with Michigan State, Ohio State and the UCLA rematch at home later that month and a closing trip to Oregon on 28 February.

The 2027 Women's Final Four is at Columbus, Ohio, from 2 to 4 April. Everything USC does between now and then will be read against whether a programme with two banners from the mid-1980s can finally add a third.