SPOKANE, Wash. — It went from something like a tough 1,000-piece puzzle to three-dimensional, 5,000-piece doozy, game-planning for a rematch with UConn in the Elite Eight without superstar JuJu Watkins.
USC women’s basketball coach Lindsay Gottlieb doesn’t only have to solve for superstar Paige Bueckers before Monday’s game with the second-seeded Huskies, she and her staff also had to fill in the hundred potholes left all over the court by Watkins’ absence.
An environmental impact report studying what they learned from their previous two matchups against UConn in the past year – an 80–73 loss in last year’s Elite Eight and a 72-70 non-conference victory in December in Storrs, Conn. – wouldn’t even do much good; not much of it would be recyclable without Watkins’ respective 29 and 25 points factored in.
USC’s coaches are going to have to ask the kids to show up early to work again – or right on time, perhaps? – and to do double time, to clock in on defense and offense. A reasonable request after freshmen Kennedy Smith, Avery Howell and Kayleigh Heckel stepped up Saturday with a combined 45 of the Trojans’ 76 points in their gritty six-point victory over Kansas State in the Sweet 16.
And they’ll have to tease out how to spring free star forward Kiki Iriafen – who had just seven points against Kansas State – from the double teams that everyone knows are coming for her with Watkins not there to distract the Huskies.
“That’s what March basketball is all about, adjustments,” said center Rayah Marshall, who’ll also be asked to make many at this time of year, when there were buses taking only eight college women’s basketball teams to practice and walk-throughs anymore, as Trojans assistant coach Beth Burns told the team.
Before the game against Kansas State “we said it’s going to be, ‘This is the first look and if they try and take this away, this is the second look, and, hey, this is the third look, and if we get to the fourth look, no one’s ever seen it, least of all me, because we haven’t had to get there at times this year because we’ve had such a high-powered offense early in transition,’ ” Gottlieb said Saturday night.
And defensively? Against this summer’s presumptive No. 1 WNBA draft pick Bueckers? And friends? Iriafen said she’s confident in the Trojans’ defensive effort so far, considering they’ve allowed an average of 48.3 points through three NCAA Tournament games.
“We understand that they’re a great team,” said Iriafen, a former Harvard Westlake High star. “They’re kind of playing at their best right now, and we’re losing a huge piece. But for us, when there’s a will, there’s a way.
“We’ll have a great game plan to guard them.”
And if – or when? – that falls apart in the ongoing madness?
“It’s March,” Marshall said. “Throw the game plan away and compete.”
