No. 4 USC is taking over the Big Ten, claiming both the regular-season conference title and the Big Ten tournament’s No. 1 seed after Saturday's dominant 80-67 win over No. 2 UCLA.
To book their first conference title since 1994, the Trojans looked to star sophomore JuJu Watkins, who posted 30 points against the Bruins — 23 of them in the first half alone.
Meanwhile, the Trojan defense stifled UCLA standouts like guard Kiki Rice and center Lauren Betts, limiting them to just 16 and 11 points, respectively.
For most of the 2024/25 NCAA basketball campaign, UCLA has outranked USC. However, the Trojans have comfortably owned the pair's head-to-head competition, handing the Bruins their only two losses on the season.
USC's four-game winning streak against UCLA dates back to last season. Subsequently, Watkins has scored at least 30 points in each of those Trojan victories. She finishes the 2024/25 regular season with an impressive 68 points in USC's two wins over the Bruins.
"I think I would be remiss to say playing UCLA doesn't motivate me extra," a smiling Watkins said after Saturday's regular-season finale.
"She's 19 years old. Her talent is off the charts," USC head coach Lindsey Gottlieb said about the likely National Player of the Year frontrunner. "But it's her humility and the stuff you can't teach, the inner drive."
Watkins helps USC book Big Ten tournament bye
The Trojans are riding high into this week's Big Ten basketball tournament, which tips off in Indianapolis on Wednesday and will ultimately determine the team who'll book the conference's lone automatic bid into March Madness.
As the conference's top seeds, both USC and UCLA earned byes through the 15-team competition's first two rounds, meaning they will begin their tournament campaigns in Friday's quarterfinals.
Should both live up to their seedings, the duo will meet again in Sunday's championship game, where both Big Ten hardware and the NCAA tournament's top seeds will be on the line.
How to watch USC in the Big Ten basketball tournament
The Big Ten basketball tournament's 14 games will air across three broadcasters, with Peacock covering Wednesday's opening round.
Rounds will air live on BTN Thursday through Saturday, before CBS hosts Sunday's 4:30 PM ET Big Ten championship game.
The weekend’s NCAA basketball action saw the field settle into their conference tournament seeds — and pick up some 2024/25 regular-season hardware along the way.
With Sunday wins over unranked Florida and No. 15 Kentucky, respectively, No. 1 Texas and No. 6 South Carolina finished regular-season play tied atop the SEC table, prompting a coin flip that saw the Gamecocks claim the conference tournament’s No. 1 seed.
No. 3 Notre Dame and No. 9 NC State similarly split regular-season honors in the ACC after Sunday victories over No. 25 Louisville and unranked SMU. With a head-to-head victory over the Irish last month, however, NC State exits the regular season as the conference’s No. 1 seed.
Upsets shake up projected 2024/25 NCAA tournament seeds
Buoyed by this season's surging parity, half of the teams featured in the NCAA’s most recent Top 16 seeding projections have lost at least one game since last week’s rankings update.
Following the trend this weekend were six AP Top 25 teams, as Big Ten standouts No. 2 UCLA and No. 12 Ohio State fell to lower-ranked conference foes, while No. 7 LSU, No. 8 UNC, No. 11 Tennessee, and No. 14 Kansas State all stumbled at the regular-season finish line with Sunday losses against unranked opponents.
Last week's setbacks could put top teams like UCLA and Notre Dame in jeopardy of losing their projected NCAA tournament No. 1 seeds.
As a result, elite squads must now bank on strong conference tournament performances to bolster their regular-season records.
Boosted by their first-ever Big 12 regular-season championship, No. 10 TCU could now push past the SEC's Flau’jae Johnson-less LSU in the NCAA tournament committee's rankings, thanks in part to the Tigers’ Sunday upset loss to unranked Ole Miss on Sunday.
Similarly, Big Ten No. 3-seed Ohio State will have to use the conference tournament to bolster their prospects after Sunday’s overtime loss to No. 19 Maryland.
With parity-fueled upsets raising this week's stakes, most major Division I tournaments will tip off on Wednesday, as both conference hardware and national tournament odds hang in the balance.