Head Coach Lindsay Gottlieb became emotional after her USC team took down the nationally-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes 83-74 Monday afternoon in Las Vegas, Nevada.

It was not because freshman guard JuJu Watkins dropped 32 points in her collegiate debut. Or because her Trojans (1-0) beat the Buckeyes (0-1) for the first time since 1987.

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It was because redshirt freshman guard Aaliyah Gayles suited up for warmups in her hometown of Las Vegas over a year and a half after she was shot at a party in April 2022. Doctors found 18 bullet holes in her body, and not just her basketball career but her ability to walk was thrown into question.

But now, Gayles is close to returning to the court with a Division I program with national title aspirations.

“She’s going to be on this floor before we know it,” Gottlieb said. “It is her resilience, her faith, her belief that has gotten her here. She makes our team better every day. And that’s what we started with in the locker room, and everyone else went out and did their jobs and made for a really, really memorable day.”

Even though she was not physically able to play in this game — or any of the games last season — Gayles is working her way back to play in a game for the Trojans.

“I know my time is coming,” Gayles said. “I love being home, playing in front of [my family]. When I came out in warm-ups, it was like, this is what I’ve dreamed of. This is what I want.”

And the Trojans, playing with the support of Gayles and her entire family in attendance, were able to come up with an upset win over the No. 7 team in the country with the help of veterans and newcomers alike.

It was a newcomer in Watkins who ignited the Trojan offense by adding six rebounds and five assists as the cherry on top to her 32 points. She scored the second-most points in a USC basketball debut, behind only Tina Thompson’s 35-point performance in her debut.

“I’m at a loss of words right now,” Watkins said. “I’m still kind of processing everything, but at the end of the day, this whole team is a bunch of players and whenever we get a chance to compete against a top-10 team — any team really — we’re ready.”

Watkins had a quick start, scoring the first bucket of USC’s season, but it was not until the second quarter that she showed why she was the No. 1 overall recruit in her recruiting class. She scored 12 points in the second frame on 4-for-4 shooting from the field, along with four free throws in as many attempts.

Six of those points came during a 13-point USC run, which gave the Trojans a 30-20 lead over OSU. Across the second period, the Trojans outscored the Buckeyes 31-10 to head into the halftime break up 46-28.

Even though Watkins did come into the year as one of the most hyped-up prospects across all sports in recent memory, she still ended up impressing people around the country. But this is no surprise to those who have been watching her throughout the preseason.

“We didn’t see anything today that we haven’t seen for 30 practices,” Gottlieb said. “It’s just on a bigger stage against a top ten team. But this is who she is. She’s ridiculous, and you get used to it.”

The wheels started to come off the track for USC after Watkins earned her fourth foul of the game with 4:04 left in the third quarter, forcing Gottlieb to substitute her young star out of the game for the rest of the period. After Watkins was subbed out, the rest of USC’s lead vanished as Ohio State went on a 14-1 run to head into the final frame with a 58-56 lead.

“We knew their pressure was coming; we knew they were going to heat it up,” Gottlieb said. “With everyone, we said, ‘Ok, right … Can we win this [fourth] quarter? Can we win this quarter by three or more? And just like forget everything that just happened, lock in and let’s try and win going forward.’ And I did have a belief that we could do that.”

The Trojans came back in the fourth quarter without using Watkins as their primary scoring option, as the Buckeyes began double-teaming her nearly every time she touched the ball. Instead, USC worked through graduate guard McKenzie Forbes. The transfer from Harvard scored 8 of her 11 points in the last 10 minutes of the game.

With the addition of Forbes and Watkins — along with three other transfers and another freshman — USC showed a much different look this game than last season, relying much more on offensive scoring ability than defensive stoutness like last year. 

None of USC’s 21 wins last year came in a game where the opposing team scored more than 65 points, Although the Trojan defense did not play poorly — limiting the seventh-best team in the nation to 40% from the field — this game showed that USC can win a game powered by offense instead of defense.

“We are more able to play at a pace offensively, so there’s going to be more possessions,” Gottlieb said. “We don’t have to worry about if the ball goes through the basket for the other team that we have to grind out a bucket; it’s just, let’s get it and go and let’s get it back.”

Watkins and the Trojans will look to continue their early-season momentum in their home opener as they take on Florida Gulf Coast (1-0) Friday, with tip-off scheduled for 7 p.m. at Galen Center.

And USC is hoping that Gayles will soon be playing in games with the team, fighting on the court as hard as she fought off the court.