There was a moment at the end of the third quarter in USC’s Elite Eight clash with UConn on  Monday night when it seemed the Trojans had hope.

USC (31-4, 17-1 Big Ten) had just gone on a 21-7 run to cut the Huskies’ (35-3, 18-0 Big East) 19-point lead to just five to begin the fourth quarter. 

After disaster struck for the Trojans exactly a week prior when they lost sophomore guard JuJu Watkins to a torn ACL, USC aimed to pull off the improbable without its star player and make it to the Final Four for the first time in 39 years.

But the Huskies, along with redshirt senior guard Paige Bueckers’ 31 total points — including 11 in the fourth — crushed those unlikely Trojan dreams in the end, as they fell 78-64 at Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena.

“UConn made it hard on us. It wasn’t like they weren’t ready or didn’t show up or whatever. UConn did a really good job, defensively,” Head Coach Lindsay Gottlieb said after the loss. “[But] I was just very proud of the way that we competed tonight, I think you saw the heart and character of our team on display.” 

This wasn’t just a rematch of last year’s Elite Eight, but also of a Dec. 21 battle that saw USC steal one from UConn in enemy territory.

It was a fight from the beginning for the Trojans, who knew they had much ground to make up with Watkins’ absence once again. While it was USC’s freshmen who got the job done in the Sweet 16 win, it was the upperclassmen who made their mark in the Elite Eight.

Playing in her last ever game in the cardinal and gold, senior center Rayah Marshall was a key source of consistent offense. She stayed active in the post with 23 points and 15 rebounds. She was also clutch from the line, making nine of her 10 free throw attempts. She set season highs in points, rebounds and field goals.

Every time USC needed a bucket to stay afloat, Marshall was there, down on the block, able to power through UConn’s tough post defenders. Although her role on offense has decreased this season, Marshall has been key to the Trojans’ climb back to the top of women’s college basketball throughout her four years at USC, playing an essential role in turning the program around from a 12-16 record in her first year to one of the top-five teams in the country.

“Freshman year wasn’t the best, but for the following year, I mean, to bring in a ton of transfers and make it to the NCAA Tournament was a lot; I just watched [Gottlieb] work her magic in front of my eyes,” Marshall said after the game. “I’m forever grateful for that.”

While Marshall was a steady presence all game long, the main catalyst of that big third quarter run came by way of graduate guard Talia von Oelhoffen, who transferred from Oregon State this season. Von Oelhoffen, who grew up just over two hours away from Spokane, had been relatively quiet in the NCAA Tournament before the Elite Eight.

She scored 10 points in the third quarter alone, the same amount she had scored in the previous three games combined. Von Oelhoffen was able to start hitting shots in the paint and beyond the arc and capped off her scoring spree at the end of the third quarter with a buzzer-beating layup that somehow fell in, despite Husky defenders draped all over her.

It was an up-and-down year for Von Oelhoffen, who touched on the difficulties she’s had navigating her role this season after the game.

“It’s been really hard for me, honestly,” Von Oelhoffen said, fighting through tears after the game. “I’m very proud of our season and all the wins, but I think it was definitely a struggle to find myself within that [new] role, but I was willing to do it for a national championship, so it sucks that it didn’t pay off, but I definitely learned a lot, and I’ll take that with me for the rest of my life.”

It was also the last game of graduate forward Kiki Iriafen’s college career. Iriafen started the game strong, scoring six points in quick succession in the first quarter, but she didn’t score a field goal after that frame. After leading the Trojans with a season-high 36 points in their Round of 32 win, Iriafen struggled in Spokane to find her offensive footing.

The same can be said for freshman guards Kennedy Smith and Avery Howell against UConn. Smith and Howell put up 19 and 18 points, respectively, in the Sweet 16, but went silent against the Huskies — a clear point of emphasis in their defensive game plan. Howell was 2-5 with 9 points, but didn’t score until the fourth quarter, while Smith struggled to find good shots, finishing with 7 points on 2-10 shooting.

Smith had the tough task of sticking on Bueckers the whole game and putting her body on the line. She consistently fought over screens to make it difficult for Bueckers to find her shot. In the fourth, the two were fighting for the ball, and Bueckers crashed into Smith and fell on top of her. Smith was slow to get up and had tears in her eyes, seeming out of breath; she battled hard the whole game and seemed to do so through injury.

“They had to know how to fit into a winning team right away and make plays under duress, and they did that,” Gottlieb said of the team’s freshmen after the game. “They’re in the conversation with the best freshmen in the country … they’re gonna keep getting better, which is unbelievable.”

It was always going to be a tough task for Gottlieb’s Trojans, not even just with the injury to Watkins, but with how dominant UConn and Bueckers have been as of late. 

The Spokane Region 4 Most Outstanding Player has been on a mission to win the National Championship before her storied collegiate career ends this season and has been playing as such. Following a 40-point career-high burst in the Sweet 16, Bueckers followed it up with another 31-point efficient outing, shooting 9-18 from the field and 4-8 from three.

Despite the numbers, Bueckers wasn’t the main inciter of UConn’s impeccable start. That would belong to freshman forward Sarah Strong, who had 10 points in the first quarter and missed just one of her five shots. She continued to be a force on the offensive end — especially with normally reliable graduate guard Azzi Fudd starting 0-9 from the field — totaling 22 points, 17 rebounds and four made threes.

This win continued to cement the Huskies’ and Head Coach Geno Auriemma’s dominance in women’s college basketball. Since the team’s last loss Feb. 6, UConn has an average margin of victory of 32.7 points. This Final Four berth also clinched Auriemma’s 16th in the last 17 tournaments.

While Gottlieb has fallen just short for the second straight year of getting USC back to that Final Four status, she knows just how much the team has still improved.

“The bar has been raised, the standard’s been raised, the expectations have been raised, and even though we’ve lost at the same point and stage, I think our team 100% delivered on raising that bar and raising that standard,” Gottlieb said. “I’m disappointed for them that we don’t get to go to Tampa and get two more games, but I’m not sad with the way this group represented themselves.”

With USC’s 2024-25 season having drawn to a close, they’ll have to wait until November — still without Watkins — to restart their climb to the illustrious Final Four.