USC ladies’s basketball will tackle UConn within the NCAA Elite Eight on Monday. The No. 1 Trojans will tackle No. 3 UConn in a battle for an opportunity to advance to the Last 4.
The Trojans have defeated Texas A&M-CC, Kansas and Baylor on their strategy to making their first Elite Eight look in thirty years. This Trojan workforce has continued to cruise previous all expectations, and is now one of many eight groups left standing within the 2024 March Insanity match.
Now, USC will go up in opposition to one of many best packages in ladies’s faculty basketball in UConn. The Huskies have received essentially the most nationwide championships of any ladies’s faculty basketball program, and just lately completed because the match’s runner-up in 2022.
Easy methods to watch:
USC-UConn shall be broadcast on ESPN, beginning at 6:15 p.m. PT. The sport can even be obtainable to stream on Fubo or Youtube TV.
Odds:
UConn is favored (-3.5) over USC (+3.5) with the over/below set at 135.5.
Whereas UConn is favored, USC has thrived off the underdog mentality all season, highlighted by their slogan “Do not Choose Us.”
Predictions:
This recreation isn’t just a battle between two nice groups, however two nice gamers in JuJu Watkins and Paige Bueckers. Watkins and Bueckers have been two of the highest gamers within the nation all season, with every incomes first-team All-American honors this season. Watkins has been the freshman within the nation, and Bueckers is a former AP Participant of the Yr. Watkins ranks second within the NCAA in factors per recreation, averaging 27 factors, 7.2 rebounds and three.3 assists per recreation. Bueckers averages 21.9 factors, 5.1 rebounds and three.8 assists per recreation.
Each gamers additionally come into this recreation sizzling. The 2 have scored over 20 factors in every of their three NCAA Match video games main into this matchup, and every have one 30 level recreation within the match. The 2 even have a powerful supporting solid, with Rayah Marshall and McKenzie Forbes supporting Watkins whereas Aaliyah Edwards and Ashlynn Shade teaming up with Bueckers.
This must be a hard-fought battle between two nice groups, however search for USC to drag by way of and return to the Last 4 for the primary time in practically forty years.
USC 78, UConn 73
Extra:
JuJu Watkins could make historical past Monday by scoring simply eight factors. Watkins is presently simply seven factors shy of San Diego State’s Tina Hutchinson all-time report for many factors scored by a D1 ladies’s faculty basketball participant of their freshman season. Watkins presently has 891 factors, seven factors in need of Hutchinson’s report of 898 factors.
Provided that Watkins has by no means scored under 9 factors in a recreation and has scored not less than 15 factors in all however one recreation this season.