The 25 assists that the USC women’s basketball team passed around in Sunday’s win over Purdue were the second-most all season. Jazzy Davidson, Kennedy Smith and Malia Samuels finished with six apiece.
It was an indicator of the team coming together in a game that snapped the Trojans’ four-game losing streak.
“We’re hunting our best selves, our most competitive,” head coach Lindsay Gottlieb told reporters after beating Purdue. “I really enjoy this team because it’s challenging, in a good way, to figure out how to be excellent amongst a great conference.”
The Trojans (11-7 overall, 3-4 Big Ten) will test their togetherness against one of the best teams in the nation on a road trip to No. 13 Michigan State (17-2, 6-2) on Thursday before heading to No.7 Michigan (15-3, 6-1) on Sunday.
Smith returned to play on Sunday after missing three games due to a lower-body injury. She played 24 minutes — roughly seven minutes less than her average — and recorded a stat line of four points, three rebounds, two steals and two blocks.
And her six assists continued to prove how she connects the team and can feed shooters like Dunn and Davidson.
While those three players had star power from the beginning, Vivian Uwuchukwu is a rebounding, front-court player who has proven herself to Gottlieb in recent games. She went from playing single-digit minutes in the last seven games to logging 15 minutes against Maryland and 17 minutes in the Purdue game.
“Her coachability and her attitude coming in with a positive, can-do outlook every day has really stood out,” Gottlieb said. “And I do think there’s upside for us as we continue to grow in that spot.”
Gottlieb added that the starting rotation is matchup-dependent, and she also takes into account who is performing best in practice that week.
The coaching staff will have to find the best combination to limit Michigan State’s Grace Van Slooten, a 6-foot-3 senior forward who is averaging 15.1 points per game on 51.7% shooting while pulling down 6.1 boards.
The Spartans don’t have a player over 6-foot-3, but that hasn’t stopped them from becoming the third-best scoring offense in the conference at 86.6 points per game while turning the ball over just 12.1 times. They’re also tenacious defenders with 12.3 steals a game, which ranks second in the Big Ten.
Michigan can also pour on the points, and is producing a conference-best 87.6 points a game while shooting 47% from the field. Olivia Olson leads the team in scoring at 17.8 points per game.
The Wolverines are also the best rebounding team in the conference (42.9 rpg) and are right behind the Spartans in steals with 11.9 per game.
Dunn’s hot hand could make USC more difficult to defend, however. Teams have consistently sent double teams to Davidson (16 ppg), but Dunn’s emergence as an offensive threat (14.3 ppg) will force opposing defenses to be more calculated.
On top of it all, Davidson and Dunn are building an unbreakable bond.
“Through all this, we’ve gotten really close,” Dunn said. “Just talking on the court, off the court about things that we need to do for this team, things we can say to other people, things we need to do on the court for our team. And so, through all this, I feel like we’re really starting to like bond together. I really want to keep pushing.”
USC (11-7 overall, 3-4 Big Ten) at MICHIGAN STATE (17-2, 6-2)
When: Thursday, 5 p.m.
Where: Breslin Center, East Lansing, Michigan
TV/Radio: Big Ten Network/USCTrojans.com/Listen
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