NCAA Tournament — No. 9 seed USC (18-13) vs. No. 1 seed South Carolina (32-3), Monday, 5 p.m. PT, Colonial Life Arena, Columbia, South Carolina, ESPN/USCTrojans.com/Listen
Haley Sawyer (OC Register) — COLUMBIA, S.C. — Jazzy Davidson has built a women’s college basketball resume that’s unmatched by any other freshman in the country this season, and equalled by few others who have played for USC.
She was named Freshman of the Year by the Big Ten and The Athletic, and added to her accomplishments on Saturday, becoming the first freshman in the last quarter of a century to have more than 30 points, five rebounds, and five assists in an NCAA Tournament debut.
“We play with a lot of grit and heart,” Davidson told reporters after the game. “And when we’re clicking, I think that can be scary for a lot of teams.”
Few teams have been able to contain Davidson this season. One of them is South Carolina — and she and the ninth-seeded Trojans (18-13) will get a second chance against the top-seeded Gamecocks (32-3) on Monday in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
“We’ve come a long way,” head coach Lindsay Gottlieb said. “We’ve gone through a lot of ups and downs of the season and developed as a team. So have they. It’s a huge challenge in front of us, but we’re excited to still be playing and excited to take our shot at one of the nation’s best teams.”
USC was playing its third game of the season when it last saw South Carolina, and the Trojans were still struggling to find their legs without JuJu Watkins, who Davidson was expected to be a complementary piece to.
At its conception, the game — which is part of a home-and-home series — was billed as a high-stakes game featuring nationally-recognized talent and was even played at Crypto.com Arena. Marketing had labeled it as “The Real SC,” putting the schools’ identical initials on the line, on the basketball court.
South Carolina walked away with a 69-52 win and held Davidson to eight points and three rebounds. It was her lowest output this season until the first round of the Big Ten Tournament, when she had eight points and one rebound while sustaining a right shoulder injury against Washington.
She was unhappy with her performance against South Carolina, naturally, but told Southern California News Group that the Big Ten season and support from her teammates has prepared her for the rematch.
“My teammates that have had more experience than me with college basketball knew that it was still super early on in the season,” Davidson said. “The world wasn’t ending. (They said) it was OK, it’s expected to have a game or two like that your freshman season.”
One of those teammates is senior guard/unsung clutch hero Kara Dunn, who could be playing in her final college basketball game on Monday. Dunn recorded 22 points and four rebounds in Saturday’s first-round overtime win over Clemson and made a three-point play late in the fourth quarter and two free throws in overtime that were pivotal in the win.
“Clemson plays with a lot of passion,” Dunn said after the Trojans’ 71-67 OT win over the 8th seeded Tigers. “They always do. And I felt like we absolutely met that, and I felt like we surpassed it in the end. We were playing for each other.”
Gottlieb described USC’s first round victory as “a culture win.”
Davidson showed no signs of having a shoulder injury in that game, aside from wearing a compression sleeve on her upper arm.
“She got full clearance to play, but the rest helped her in the off time, and the rehab continues,” Gottlieb said. “She’s a really tough kid. I don’t think anything was going to keep her from playing. She continues to just deal with a shoulder thing.”
Davidson, who appeared to be on the verge of tears as the referees reviewed the final play of regulation to determine whether she had committed a foul that would have set Clemson up for game-winning free throws, said on Sunday there’s a standard that this year’s Trojans feel they are responsible for meeting.
“I think our expectations, you know nobody wanted to lose JuJu, we all love her, but we have to keep going as you said and just holding that same expectation that they had last season. Just the program standard,” Davidson said. “And just resiliency and making sure that we’re doing our best every game.”
South Carolina lost just three games after beating USC on Nov. 15, falling to Texas twice and Oklahoma once. The Gamecocks will look a little different this time around after adding Alicia Tournebize, a 6-foot-7 French forward, who was added to the roster in late December.
Six-foot-3 sophomore forward Joyce Edwards (19.8 ppg) has been a force for South Carolina this season and put up 17 points, 10 rebounds, four assists and two blocks the last time the two teams met.
“We’ve got to box out,” Gottlieb said. “We’ve got to box out. Keep them off the boards. That’s important.”
“We have everything to gain, nothing to lose going into this game, so I feel like this (win over Clemson) has really helped us,” Dunn said.
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Well Trojan’s baseball failed a big test today losing 12-4 to Oregon St. SC used 9 of their 10 pitchers and got pounded. Too bad they only get one shot at them.
Reality set in, perhaps. Like our previous basketball coach, Andy Devine or whatever, early cupcakes were scheduled so that it made everyone think we had a good team….
I guess we shall see.
It’s a long season
The 3 game series with #1 SUCLA next weekend will the biggest test all season.
I still think that this guy is a great coach but Rome wasn’t built in a day.
I wouldn’t throw the Stanky out with the bath water. He’s doing great. Just disappointing to lose to a top 25 team. Maybe if they had a couple more games with the Beaves they would have done better.
They still don’t have that championship mental attitude where they believe they can beat anybody. That has to be developed. But like I said, Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Well South Carolina blew us out and it wasn’t close
Hoping Juju gets healthy, Jazzy and Kennedy continue to grow, and the new recruits and transfer portal help us
I watched part of the gruesome debacle. Sadly, USC simply didn’t belong on the same court as the 100% better Gamecocks tonight. It was a shocking display of complete ineptitude. South Carolina even pulled some starters late in the 3rd Q after cruising to a 30-pt lead at half. Who knew our 18-14 Trojans would completely fall apart? I felt sorry for our overmatched players. The Trojans were humiliated from beginning to end in every facet of the game. We couldn’t dribble, pass, shoot, hold the ball, defend, rebound, or do anything basically … I may be mistaken, but I… Read more »
Being a Trojan fan, I don’t know much about championship basketball 😁, but it strikes me that you can’t start five guards and expect to win at the highest levels, unless the five guards were Magic Johnson/Michael Jordan hybrids…. Hope that Coach Gottlieb recruits some tall players for next season.
Just like you can’t start 11 WRs on a football team, though it would be funny to see what that looks like!
Don’t worry, Genius Riley will figure out how to start 1 qb and 10 wr’s, half of whom played qb in high school.