After securing the 1-0 win against Grand Canyon University at home in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, USC now heads on the road for what seems to be a tough opponent.

The eighth-seeded Trojans (11-4-3, 6-2-3 Pac-12) will take on the top-seeded seed Brigham Young University (17-2-3, 7-0-3 Big-12) Thursday in Utah. The Cougars’ strong season, which featured a victory over then-ranked No. 1 UCLA (16-2-1, 10-0-1 Pac-12), poses a threat to USC’s NCAA Tournament run. However, the Trojans’ challenging opponent has not disturbed the team’s mentality.

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“We’re happy to still be in it and obviously going to try to make the furthest run that we possibly can,” said Head Coach Jane Alukonis in an interview with the Daily Trojan. “We’re facing it like how we would any game and that’s just asking for full effort from the players.” 

USC has yet to overcome BYU on the road, being 0-2 in Utah all-time with an overall record of 3-3-2. In their last meeting, the Trojans lost 1-2 in a game in which several current players saw minutes.

USC’s defense against GCU (14-5-4, 5-1-3 Western Athletic Conference) was strong, holding the Lopes to four shots, of which only one was on goal. The Trojans would need to keep up the defensive momentum heading into their next matchup as the Cougars average 25.1 shots per game and a shot-on-goal percentage of 37.8% this season. Even in their most recent 3-1 loss against Texas (16-4-2, 6-3-1 Big-12), the Cougars still managed 12 shots with seven on goal. 

Despite having a dominant 14 shots taken against GCU, USC only scored one, which was a penalty taken by junior midfielder Helena Sampaio. About 42.9% of these shots were on goal, which is higher than BYU’s most recent 32.1% shots on goal in their round one victory. Statistically, the Cougars’ high shot volume does not directly relate to high scoring, but such a high volume of shots could bring an offensive threat to the Trojans’ defense. Senior forward Brecken Mozingo and senior midfielder Olivia Wade-Katoa may be on USC’s defensive radar as both players have put away 11 goals this season for BYU.

“We know that BYU is good in transition, they send a lot of numbers forward,” Alukonis said. “It may be a transitional game, kind of like them versus Texas. It’s probably going to be a lot of running and a lot of work to make sure that we do our jobs in both attack and defense.”

In NCAA Tournament history, USC has made a total of 22 appearances, with this year marking the 10th straight appearance since 2014. Thursday’s match against BYU marks the 13th time USC has advanced past the first round of the tournament. In their last second-round appearance in 2021, the Trojans lost in penalty kicks to Penn State. 

“In the tournament, there’s a different energy about it,” Alukonis said. “Normally when you’re in the middle of [the] season, if you drop a game, it’s not the end of the world and in tournament time, you drop a game and it’s done — your season’s over. We know this game is going to be two-sided in that way and both teams are gonna have to try to do their best on both sides of the ball.” 

USC will battle BYU Thursday in the second round of the NCAA Tournament at 6 p.m. on South Field.