The Huskies, despite coming in as the lower seed, were never the underdogs against the Trojans.

Through a combination of poise and smart play with a limited bench, the University of Connecticut Huskies (33-5, 18-0 Big East) were able to end the Trojans’ historic season, taking down USC (29-6, 13-5 Pac-12) 80-73 in the Elite Eight of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament.

“I am so proud and so grateful for what this team did,” said Head Coach Lindsay Gottlieb in the postgame press conference. “We were disappointed. We had our sights on Cleveland. But I just think we’ve done a lot of celebrating and I appreciate that, and I just think this team’s legacy is forever entrenched in USC history.”

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Freshman guard JuJu Watkins was outmatched in the final game of her first tournament run by a fellow star in UConn’s redshirt junior guard Paige Bueckers. Watkins was still one of the best players on the court, playing in the Elite Eight in her first college season. The star freshman — scoring 29 points against the Huskies — set the NCAA Division I freshman women’s scoring record with 920 points this season.

“Just coming up short, that adds a lot of fuel to the fire for the next couple years,” Watkins said in the postgame press conference. “I’m just excited to go back home and get in the gym now. And I’m really focused on learning from this season as a whole and things I can improve on, definitely my efficiency.”

Even though the Trojans came into the game as the No. 1 seed in the region, multiple sportsbooks gave the No. 3-seeded Huskies a betting advantage, and for good reason. UConn came into the game with more experience in the NCAA Tournament, as both Bueckers and senior forward Aaliyah Edwards made the Final Four their freshman year.

Bueckers proved why she was the Associated Press Player of the Year as a freshman, dropping 28 points on 47.8% efficiency against the Trojans. 

“Any time that you have a short mental lapse, she capitalizes on it,” graduate guard McKenzie Forbes said during the postgame press conference. “That’s what makes her really good; she’s very good at making reads. She made tough ones.”

Edwards — the other seasoned veteran for UConn — was nearly as efficient, knocking down seven of 13 shots from the field for 24 points. 

The experienced duo combined for 30 of the Huskies’ 47 second-half points as they both made the All-Regional team along with three Trojans. With the score knotted up at 33 apiece when the halftime buzzers sounded, it was UConn’s two stars who took it upon themselves to take home the win.

The Huskies showed off their experience, playing mature basketball down the line. Even though five players had three or more fouls, none of them fouled out. It was imperative for UConn — with a thin bench to start the game — to keep its players from fouling out as the Huskies only put seven players on the floor throughout the game.

“[Associate Head Coach Beth Burns] actually said in the locker room, ‘To be a champion, you have to beat a champion,’” Gottlieb said. “UConn is a championship team … so maybe there’s some learning we have to do there of what it takes.”

The Trojans, on the other hand, let their lack of deep tournament experience shine through for practically the first time during the Big Dance.

USC was plagued by uncharacteristic misses from its role players throughout the game, as graduate guard Kayla Padilla and graduate forward Kaitlyn Davis combined to go 2-for-15 from the field. 

While neither Padilla nor Davis lit up the scoring sheet throughout the season, they were normally efficient in their scoring chances; Padilla had shot 44.6% from the field and Davis had shot 56.2% through the first 34 games of the campaign.

“We didn’t shoot it as well as we normally shoot it, and I give UConn a lot of credit for that, but we haven’t been on this stage,” Gottlieb said.

Watkins — despite making history with her 29 points — seemed slightly timid in the first half, as she only put up eight shots from the field. She had a much more aggressive second half, shooting the rock 17 times in the closing 20 minutes.

But her aggressiveness was met with a staunch UConn defense, as only five of Watkins’ shots went in during the second half. The Huskies held the Trojans to 32.9% shooting from the field across the game, but put in a whopping 48.3% of their shots.

“They beat us,” Gottlieb said. “They did a little better of what they do than what we do.”

The “nerves” came through for the Trojans in their first trip to the Elite Eight since 1994, as USC prepares to lose multiple graduating players. But Gottlieb and the Trojans will return with Watkins for next season, also bringing in three five-star recruits according to ESPN and an additional three top-100 recruits.

“The way that the country is going to see USC women’s basketball is really different than what it was four months ago,” Gottlieb said. “That’s a powerful thing for the group here, so I think their legacy is that they got us somewhere. And now, it’s on all of us to say what’s next. We’re not trying to be a one-hit wonder … The sky is the limit for where we can go, even though we’ll look different.”

Gottlieb and her staff will try to reach that limit as they prepare for their first season in the Big Ten Conference.

Before then, Watkins will look to build off a historic season and improve to help bring the Trojans to the promised land of a national championship, a feat USC has not accomplished since 1984.