After a stretch of six losses in seven games, USC women’s basketball finally bounced back with a statement 81-69 win against No. 8 Iowa on Thursday night. The Trojans earned their first win over the Hawkeyes since 1984 while also ending Iowa’s eight-game winning streak.  

Despite junior guard Malia Samuels being out of the rotation due to an undisclosed injury, the Trojans were able to come out on top due to lights-out performances from senior guard Kara Dunn, freshman guard Jazzy Davidson and senior guard Londynn Jones. The victory became USC’s (13-9, 5-6 Big Ten) second top 10 win of the season — their first as an unranked team since 2023 — and their fourth Top 25 win.  

“We really felt like we needed this win,” Davidson said in a postgame news conference. “The team morale is really good right now, despite the losses.”

Dunn continues scoring streak

The Trojans took control of the game early with a strong offensive start. USC held Iowa (18-4, 9-2) to just two points while they went on a 10 point scoring run, highlighted by plays from Jones and Davidson. Dunn once again shined, accumulating her seventh straight game scoring over 20 points and eclipsing 1,500 career points. 

Dunn once again led USC with 25 points on an 8-for-14 field goal clip, while making 6-out-of-her-9 free throws. She also notched 12 rebounds for her fifth career double-double. 

“To be in a Trojan uniform, it means everything to me,” Dunn said in a postgame news conference. “Going into the transfer portal, I want to feel like I had a coach that had confidence in me, and [Head] Coach Lindsay [Gottlieb] has given me all that and more.”

Davidson, USC’s leading scorer, followed closely behind with 21 points on 8-for-17 shooting. She set the tone early with a 3-pointer on the first play of the game, giving the Trojans a lead they never relinquished. Throughout the game, Davidson put multiple mid-range daggers into Hawkeye momentum, and dished a team-high eight assists.

Sophomore guard Kennedy Smith had an improved offensive gameplay following tough performances during the Trojans’ two-loss Michigan trip. While she gave up a career-high eight turnovers at Michigan, she only had two on Thursday. Smith also shot 6-for-16, coming alive in a 10-point second half to finish with 12 points. However, her struggles from beyond the arc continued, as she missed both of her 3-point attempts.

“Kennedy’s second half performance today was incredibly important for us,” Gottlieb said in a postgame news conference. “We know that the offense is designed for people to make the right read, and if the right read is for Ken to go to the rim, she’s going to go to the rim.”

‘We came out the aggressors’

According to Gottlieb, USC went into the matchup planning to take on the Hawkeye backcourt while emphasizing their defensive presence on Iowa’s forwards. Gottlieb said USC’s defensive effort, led by Smith and Davidson, took the guards out of the Iowa interior game, allowing USC to take charge in the post battle.

“We wanted to battle the bigs, not let them get in deep position and also help big-to-big, and really take their guards out of it with pressure,” Gottlieb said. “I really got on [the team] about the six made 3s for Iowa in the first half, and we held them to one in the second. I knew they couldn’t do both.”

The pressure from the Trojans resulted in Iowa giving up seven turnovers in just the first quarter, which USC converted into nine points. The Trojans also hit five 3-pointers in the first, bringing their lead at the end of the first quarter up to 28-13. Jones aided the Trojans offensively throughout the night with 17 points of her own while shooting 7-for-11 and 3-for-8 on 3-pointers. 

Just before halftime, Iowa crawled back with five more 3-pointers in an attempt to catch up to the Trojans’ lead, bringing the score within six in the second quarter. Out of halftime, the Hawkeyes came close to taking the lead, getting within 3 points following a 6-0 scoring run, but a layup and free throw by sophomore forward Vivian Iwuchukwu helped USC fend off any chance of a Hawkeye comeback.

While USC has started strong and fallen short in the second half of previous games, this proved not to be the case for Gottlieb’s squad against the Hawkeyes. While USC obtained the bulk of its turnovers in the second half, it also went for a combined 38 points highlighted by 16 rebounds and making 50 percent of its 3-point shots.

USC turned over the ball only five times — its lowest total across the season so far —  while garnering 19 points off of Iowa’s turnovers. The Trojans also recorded 23 assists as a unit while making 45.6% of their field goal attempts.

Continued forward battle

Amidst the current competition for the starting forward position, Iwuchukwu got the start against Iowa. While Gottlieb continued to rotate between Iwuchukwu and junior forward Gerda Raulušaityte throughout the game, neither made much of an impact in the Trojans’ win. 

Iwuchucku only scored three points and collected four rebounds for the entire 17 minutes she saw on the court before going down early in the fourth quarter with an injury. Raulušaityte finished out the game with three rebounds and zero points to her name. 

However, the Trojans never let their foot off the gas. They closed out the game holding a 12-point lead that Iowa was unable to recover from. 

“They were just tremendous,” Gottlieb said. “I believe we are a better basketball team now than we were then and now we just got to keep showing it on the scoreboard.”

The Trojans returned back to Galen Center on Sunday, dispatching Rutgers (9-13, 1-10) with ease in a 71-39 rout, and will face Northwestern (8-14, 2-9) in Evanston, Illinois, on Thursday at 6 p.m.