"Lindsay Gottlieb wanted her team to be tested by the best. That's why she put together one of the most grueling schedules in all of college basketball, with four games against teams currently ranked in the top four. But with three of those tests completed, the results haven't exactly been what she - or anyone else - would have hoped."
""We can be honest and say this is an embarrassing loss." That might be understating it. USC was outshot 53% to 27% by its rival, outrebounded 46 to 26 and outworked in pretty much every sense of the word. The offense was out of sorts. The defense was disastrous, with UCLA regularly blowing past USC in the post on its way to 46 points in the paint."
""I've seen right now in three games that we're not as competitive as we wanted to be with the top five teams in the country," Gottlieb said. "But I'm not sorry we have them on our schedule. We're not trying to be a top-25 or top-15 team. We're trying to be the national champions. We're trying to be the best program in the country.""
UCLA routed USC 80-46, the largest margin of defeat in Lindsay Gottlieb's tenure. UCLA exploited USC's frontcourt weaknesses; Bruins center Lauren Betts scored 18 points. UCLA shot 53% while USC shot 27%, and UCLA outrebounded USC 46-26. UCLA totaled 46 points in the paint while USC's offense struggled and its defense repeatedly allowed post scoring. USC previously lost by 17 to No. 2 South Carolina and 28 to No. 1 Connecticut earlier this season. Gottlieb called the loss embarrassing and a painful lesson but defended a grueling schedule aimed at building a national-championship program.
Read at Los Angeles Times
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