What we learned about USC women’s basketball in nonconference play

We’re at a very crucial point in the USC women’s basketball season. The Trojans have now played 11 nonconference games (with 1 conference game against Washington sandwiched in) of varying difficulty to figure out their identity, and now they must act on that identity to be competitive in the Big Ten and make the NCAA tournament.

So, what have the Trojans shown us about who they are? What can we expect from them as they try to compete in a really tough Big Ten Conference? How does that differ from our early season expectations?

Let’s talk about it.

The defense is even better than expected

USC was always going to be elite defensively, with Lindsay Gottlieb and Beth Burns at the helm. That was especially clear at the guard position with so much elite guard talent defensively like Kennedy Smith, Jazzy Davidson, Malia Samuels and Kara Dunn.

There were question marks about how USC would stack up defensively in the front court. USC lost a lot of size and a lot of talent in the front court when Kiki Iriafen, Rayah Marshall and Clarice Akunwafo all graduated this offseason. With a lack of size and experience on USC’s roster and especially at the forward position, it felt likely that USC would struggle against bigger teams.

Hanging tough

USC’s frontcourt has held up admirably on the defensive end. Gerda Raulušaityte and Vivian Iwuchukwu have primarily carried the load down low, but all of USC’s forwards have chipped in with great games here and there including Laura Williams, Yakiya Milton and Dayana Mendes.

There’s still rebounding issues and I am still scared to take on players like Lauren Betts at UCLA. But, no team has completely made the USC front court look overmatched as much as I feared just yet.

This team can win games different ways

The Trojans have four different players who can step up and be primary scorers in a game that USC wins: Jazzy Davidson, Londynn Jones, Kennedy Smith and Kara Dunn. That scoring depth will be vital in Big Ten play because USC cannot count on any of those players to be the #1 option every night. Davidson has consistency issues because she’s a freshman, Jones is more effective in certain matchups than others, Smith has turned out to be more of a defense-first player, and Dunn doesn’t hunt or create her own shot consistently. But they can count on at least one of them basically every night.

The Trojans can also win when the offense is totally sputtering, because of their elite defense.

Opponents can’t key in on one player and one game plan. USC can, and will, adjust on the fly and Lindsay Gottlieb has done a great job coaching the game in front of her and the Trojans.

The biggest issue is taking care of the basketball

You would think, with how full this USC roster is of talented guards, that someone would be a trustworthy primary ballhandler. I don’t feel one has emerged at this point. Other teams wreak havoc on the Trojans in the passing lanes, too. The offense is just kind of clunky at times because the Trojans struggle to run a half-court offense.

The Trojans have a 1.24 assist to turnover ratio, which ranks ninth (right in the middle) in the Big Ten. I think that ratio is going to get worse as USC consistently plays tougher defenses.

The reality of lacking JuJu Watkins

This to me is the clearest area that USC is missing JuJu Watkins in. Yes, Watkins’ elite scoring and defense and all of her skills would boost the Trojans. But if she magically healed in time for conference play, the biggest difference I think we’d see is how much better USC would take care of the basketball.

Jazzy Davidson has shown flashes of great court vision, and I think that she will grow into a great ball handler alongside Watkins next season. But right now, it can be a tough watch sometimes. It’s not something Trojan fans need to be extremely frustrated about overall, but it could sink USC in a few conference games.

Jazzy Davidson is not just USC’s biggest star, she is also the Trojans’ engine

With Watkins out, bringing in the No. 1 recruit in the country in Davidson was a key reason that USC was able to remain nationally relevant coming into this season. But all the media coverage that a high school player of Davidson’s caliber gets before she ever played in a collegiate game could have either either set the table for her stardom or put unnecessary pressure on her development.

Davidson has stepped into the spotlight beautifully. She has averaged 16.8 points per game, 6.7 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 2.0 steals, and 2.5 blocks per game, filling the stat sheet both offensively and defensively.

Big-game Jazzy

What has catapulted her stardom even further is that she’s at her best when USC plays its biggest games. These are Davidson’s three highest scoring outputs so far this season: 24 points, 22 points and 21 points. What games did those come in? Versus Cal at the Chase Center, versus No. 21 Washington and versus No. 9 NC State, USC’s three biggest wins of the season so far.

She is still raw and going through her share of basketball growing pains. Plus, on the flip side, her two worst scoring outputs of the season, 10 point and 8 points, came against South Carolina and UConn in USC’s two worse losses of the season. If Davidson doesn’t play at an elite level against elite opponents, the Trojans massively struggle.

Relying so heavily on a freshman, even one of Davidson’s caliber, may not be the formula for winning a national title. But, its clear that Davidson is going to put together some more epic performances during USC’s biggest conference games, delivering Trojan fans epic memories of games they will never forget.

It’s going to help her grow massively ahead of Watkins’ return next season.

Kennedy Smith might not be an offensive star, but that is okay

I want to take you back to March 29 of this year. USC took on Kansas State in the Sweet 16 without JuJu Watkins and won.

In that game, Kennedy Smith dropped 19 points on 7-14 shooting to lead the Trojans to a 67-61 win. Notably, Avery Howell chipped in 18 points.

It gave Trojan fans a lot of hope for a season without JuJu Watkins in the aftermath of news that she’d torn her right ACL. An offense led by Smith and Howell sounded potentially very good. Smith did average 20.2 points per game her senior year in high school.

Howell transferred to Washington, of course. She’s averaging 12.3 points per game on 44.8% shooting for the Huskies. Good for her.

Smith is averaging 9.9 points per game on 31.4% shooting. She hasn’t shot better than 40% from the field, she hasn’t scored more than 16 points in a game. She just has not matched that Sweet 16 performance despite having had an entire offseason to work on her offensive game.

She’s been maybe the fourth best offensive player on this Trojan team, behind Jazzy Davidson, Londynn Jones and Kara Dunn. Coming into the season, there was real reason to believe she could be the best. She was the third best offensive player on a Trojan team with JuJu Watkins, Kiki Iriafen, Howell and Kayleigh Heckel. It feels almost like she has regressed offensively.

Huge workload

There’s plenty of reasons this could be happening. She’s dealing with more responsibility with Watkins and Iriafen out, on offense and defense. Smith also struggles at times to be a primary ball handler and create her own shot, but the Trojans don’t have another ball handler with gravity like Watkins to get her open looks either. She also could just be going through a really long slump.

I have hope that Smith can still turn it around and become a very good scorer at the college level. I also can still recognize that she’s been an absolute star in other facets of her game. She’s an absolutely elite defensive player that I absolutely love to watch take on the other team’s best offensive player.

I hope that Smith can take some of the pressure off of herself and know that if the offense comes, that’s okay and if it doesn’t, that’s okay too. She just needs to not force anything.

My overall feelings

This team is really fun to watch and tuning into games this season has felt just as rewarding as the last few. I really hope that Trojan fans continue to view this season as an opportunity to accomplish something really special in and of itself, and not just a transition/development year while Watkins recovers.

This holiday season, I feel really grateful for Lindsay Gottlieb and the coaching staff she has assembled. I think that in the 2022-23 season, before Watkins arrived on campus, we got a glimpse of what this USC program is always going to look like as long as Gottlieb is in town, regardless of how much talent is on the team.

Always battling

This team is always going to fight tooth and nail, compete with anybody, and play elite defense, regardless of how much offensive talent is on the team.

But I am blessed to watch some show stopping offensive talent too. All in all, I am really excited to see what awaits the Trojans in conference play, and grateful to cheer on such a great program in an era where women’s basketball is growing in such a meaningful way.

I hope you are feeling grateful this holiday season as well.

This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: Evaluating USC women’s basketball as nonconference schedule ends

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