For the last two seasons, the UConn women’s basketball team’s game against USC has been one of the most highly-anticipated matchups on the calendar.
When the teams began their home-and-home series in Hartford in Dec. 2024, the Trojans earned their-first ever win over the Huskies in a 72-70 thriller that averaged 2.23 million viewers on FOX, making it the second-most viewed women’s basketball game in the history of the network. Their rematch in the Elite Eight peaked at 3.4 million viewers on ESPN even with USC star JuJu Watkins out due to an ACL tear, and the 2024 Elite Eight game that the Huskies won 80-73 averaged 6.7 million viewers. In front of sold-out arenas and on network TV broadcasts, UConn and USC have delivered record audiences and a quality battle on the court every time they’ve met.
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But the regular-season series between programs will likely end after the No. 1 Huskies face the No. 16 Trojans at the Galen Center in Lost Angeles on Saturday. Coach Geno Auriemma said Friday that there is currently no plan to renew the home-and-home, in part because conference realignment already creates a massive burden of travel for the West coast teams.
UConn women’s basketball continues budding rivalry vs. No. 16 USC in Los Angeles: How to watch
USC, which joined the Big Ten alongside Oregon, UCLA and Washington in 2024, has six conference games this season in a different time zone on top of the pair they’ve already played against non-conference competition. The Huskies, for comparison, play just three games outside of Eastern time in the Big East.
“It certainly has changed,” Auriemma said. “Most times you would get somebody to come out here and play two (non-conference) games, but now they have to come out here not just to play two games but they’ve got also come out and play at Maryland or play Rutgers. I don’t know that they’re necessarily excited about playing us and a conference game on the same trip … I don’t know that they’re willing to add a third game, so it has brought up some challenges that didn’t exist in the past.”
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The Huskies already had to drop their marquee regular-season series with South Carolina in 2025-26 after the Big East extended its schedule to 20 conference games, but they found a way to get the matchup back on the calendar for the next two years through neutral site showcases. The Gamecocks will travel to Connecticut to play in the Basketball Hall of Fame Women’s Showcase at Mohegan Sun next November, then the Huskies will return the pseudo home-and-home at the Ally Tipoff in Charlotte, North Carolina in 2027.
The events are becoming more popular in the modern era of college basketball, because they give teams an opportunity to bring in additional revenue through the game’s sponsors. UConn played its lone top-10 game of non-conference play in this year’s Hall of Fame Showcase against No. 6 Michigan, and it will also face No. 11 Iowa next weekend at the Women’s Champions Classic in Brooklyn, New York. USC played what was then a top-20 matchup against NC State in the Ally Tipoff.
“If they weren’t so far away where you come all the way out here for one game, maybe it would be a little bit easier,” Auriemma said. “The whole realignment thing I think has really made it difficult for home-and-homes. You might be able to get these neutral court games where you play once, but in terms of home-and-homes, it’s gotten tougher.”
Even with the absence of USC from their 2026-27 schedule, UConn will have plenty of big-time matchups to look forward to. In addition to South Carolina, the Huskies will return series at No. 21 Ohio State and No. 19 Notre Dame next season. They also owe a road matchup to No. 22 Louisville after facing the Cardinals at neutral sites the last two years.
