The USC Trojans’ national title aspirations left the building when JuJu Watkins tore her ACL and announced she would miss the entire 2025-2026 season. USC will still be a solid program in the Big Ten Conference, but expectations certainly took a hit with Watkins’ injury.
The UCLA Bruins will try to take advantage this season with Watkins on the sideline but USC will still do their best to compete for a championship but the Southern California Roundtable discussed what a realistic expectation for the Trojans this season.
Matt Zemek, Editor
Get a No. 4 NCAA Tournament seed. That would mean two home games at the Galen Center and a great chance to make the Sweet 16. That home-game path is such a big deal in March Madness, so that is the realistic goal this team can attain. Preseason rankings have USC right near that dividing line between a No. 4 and 5 seed (top 16 versus top 20).
Adam Bradford, Trojans Wire
USC’s goal should be to be competitive in the Big Ten, earn the best possible seed in the NCAA Tournament, and hope to get hot and make a run come March.
Dylan McNeill, UCLA Wire
Get to the Sweet 16. It hurts to lose a star like JuJu Watkins but USC still has a lot of talent and this season will give the Trojans to figure out what they have in the rest of their roster to best set themselves up for national title runs when Watkins returns next season.
Micah Huff, Trojans Wire
Getting to the Elite Eight would be a realistic and achievable goal for this talented team.
Ryan Lorenz, UCLA Wire
Their season took a hit with the loss of Watkins, but they should still have a chance to compete and at the very least, get to the NCAA Tournament and the Sweet 16. If they can get do that at the bare minimum, then they had a successful season. Of course, no one will be happy with that outcome because the hope was to be able to win it all this season, but without Watkins, it will be an accomplishment to make it that far.
Ethan Inman, Trojans Wire
I think winning an NCAA tournament game. Making it to the Big Dance for the fourth season in a row would be a very nice feather in Lindsay Gottlieb’s cap and help the young players on this roster get additional postseason experience ahead of a 2026-27 season when they should have a loaded roster and be favored to win the national championship. If they make it further than that, great. But the coaching staff, and fanbase, needs to be patient with this roster, focus on winning each individual game, and celebrate every little bit of achievement this roster can muster.
This article originally appeared on UCLA Wire: SoCal Basketball Roundtable: realistic goal for USC’s women’s basketball team this season
Reporting by Dylan McNeill, Ryan Lorenz and Matt Zemek, UCLA Wire / UCLA Wire
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