USC’s Lindsay Gottlieb says struggling Trojans are ‘right there’ despite losing five of six

His USC team may have lost five of their last six games, more than they lost all of last season, while the road ahead could be an uphill climb, with four of their last 10 games against top 12 teams.

But at 11-8, coach Lindsay Gottlieb is in no way ready to wave the white flag on USC’s season or its NCAA tournament hopes. Quite the contrary, in fact.

“There’s a ton of season left,” Gottlieb said confidently Friday, two days before USC faces No. 7 Michigan in Ann Arbor. The Trojans had just lost to Michigan State 74-68 the night before.

“We know we’re there,” the coach continued. “But right now, it’s not good enough. We’re not happy with that. But for this team, if we continue to figure out the things that are holding us back from getting over the hump, you know, then we think we can do some damage.”

That certainly seemed the case in early January, when the Trojans were 10-3 and appeared to have found some sort of progress without injured superstar JuJu Watkins. But the void she had left in USC’s roster became especially visible in the new year, as a blowout loss to UCLA, the biggest defeat of Gottlieb’s tenure, left USC reeling. Sophomore forward Kennedy Smith was subsequently injured, and USC blew a fourth-quarter lead against Oregon a few nights later. In three of their next four games – against Minnesota, Maryland and Michigan State – USC somehow failed to deliver on its promise.

However, none of these defeats, Gottlieb points out, was so detrimental to the Trojans’ resumption of the tournament. Not yet, at least. USC still sits in 25th place in the NET rankings, thanks to its grueling non-conference schedule to start the season. The Trojans are 9-1 in games against Quad 2, 3 and 4 opponents, although they are 2-7 against top-ranked opponents currently ranked in Quad 1.

That trend can’t continue if USC hopes to make the NCAA Tournament for the fourth straight season under Gottlieb, a streak the USC women’s basketball program hasn’t matched since Cheryl Miller left the sidelines. But after Sunday’s game against Michigan, USC will have to face another top-10 team when Iowa comes to the Galen Center.

The schedule should get easier after that, with matchups through February against Rutgers (9-10), Northwestern (8-11), Indiana (11-9) and Penn State (7-13), all of which rank in the bottom third of the conference. Still, the margin for error throughout this stretch, given USC’s eight losses, is razor-thin.

“Our mindset is all about the future,” guard Kara Dunn said. “We have so many opportunities ahead of us to make a difference. »

Most of those opportunities lately have come from Dunn, who has been dynamic since the start of the new year. She is averaging over 24 points in USC’s last five games.

It was precisely the role she envisioned when she committed to Gottlieb and USC, looking for a smoother, pro-style offense. But that would require some adjustment, the same way it took transfer forward Kiki Iriafen time to settle into the offense last season.

“I was just trying to find my place,” Dunn said.

USC guard Kara Dunn has found her rhythm in the new year, averaging over 24 points in her last five games.

(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)

She found him just in time, with freshman Jazzy Davidson mired in a multi-game slump. Davidson is still one of the top recruits in college basketball this season, but she is shooting just 38 percent from the field this season. Smith, the Trojans’ third-leading scorer, was even more consistent at 35 percent. Both have particularly struggled from the three-point line in recent games, shooting a combined four of 26 over their last three games.

Fortunately for USC, Dunn came back from the depths of her absence, hitting 44 percent of her three-point attempts over the last four to keep the Trojans afloat on offense. Against Purdue, in USC’s only win in January, Dunn dropped a game-high 29.

“I just remember who I am and who I used to be,” Dunn said. “I’m used to scoring in big numbers.”

USC will need his contributions to continue if they hope to make any noise in March. There’s not much Gottlieb can do now about the limitations of USC’s frontcourt, which has relied all season on a four-man center rotation. But Davidson continues to improve in his first season, while Dunn’s emergence has helped ease pressure on the Trojans’ impressive rookie.

As Gottlieb gathered her team for a meeting Friday, she urged her players to learn from the hard lessons of the past three weeks. This was not the time to sound the alarm, she assured, in the hope that they would stay together from here on.

“The only way to get through a storm is not to get off the road,” Gottlieb said, “but to keep going through it.”