When USC made the stunning move three years ago to leave the Pac-12 and join the Big Ten, the expectation was that the Trojans would need some time to adjust to their new conference. In football, that was indeed the case, as USC went 4-5 in conference play in its inaugural season in the league. In women’s basketball, on the other hand, the opposite turned out to be true—it was the Big Ten that needed to adjust to the Trojans. In Year 1, the rest of the league failed in that endeavor.
On Saturday night, USC women’s basketball dominated crosstown rival UCLA at Pauley Pavilion. With the victory, the Women of Troy claimed their first Big Ten regular season title in their first year in the conference.
It was widely expected that the Trojans were going to be very good this year. But the fact that they were able to walk into an entirely new conference and establish themselves as the class of the league in year one says a lot about Lindsay Gottlieb’s program.
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USC’s last regular season conference title came in 1994, when the Trojans won the old Pac-10. If anything, USC’s road actually got somewhat easier in the Big Ten, as they did not have to go through numerous historically successful West Coast women’s basketball programs, such as Stanford and Oregon State.
With the regular season title now clinched, the Trojans will now turn their attention to the Big Ten Tournament in Indianapolis, where they will be the No. 1 seed. After winning the final Pac-12 Tournament championship last season, USC will look to do the same in their new conference this year.
Let’s capture some of the reactions, statistical milestones, and special dimensions of USC’s win on Saturday night:
This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: USC women win regular season conference title for 1st time since 1994