Last season was pretty Sweet. I mean, it was Elite.
But now we’re gonna need more.
Which is asking a lot, I know. Just flat-out greedy, the rich wanting to get only richer.
Here’s the thing: We’ve stopped taking seriously haters who want the hoop lowered for women because the bar has been so seriously raised.
Banners next?
Because we watched women’s basketball’s moment blossom into something bigger last season, and both USC and UCLA planted themselves right in the thick of it.
We had the Trojans earning a top seed in the NCAA Tournament and reaching the Elite Eight for the first time since 1994, drawing 6.7 million viewers for a dramatic showdown between freshman phenom JuJu Watkins and UConn sensation Paige Bueckers.
We had the Bruins ranked No. 2 nationally for much of the season, and finishing 10th after being sent to Albany, N.Y., where they became a Sweet 16 sacrifice in what was women’s basketball equivalent to soccer’s group of death. Iowa, LSU and UCLA, all contenders to reach the championship, in one regional cage match from which Caitlin Clark’s Hawkeyes emerged.
But before Iowa won its rematch with defending champion LSU, UCLA lost to the Tigers in a thriller that drew 3.83 million viewers – at the time, the the third-largest tournament audience on record for a non-Final Four game.
We also had both the Bruins and Trojans earning the right to host the first two rounds of NCAA Tournament action, drawing 8,000-plus people at a time to Galen Center and Pauley Pavilion – even when their games were happening simultaneously.
Before that, we got them holding court and splitting their two matchups, handing each other their first losses in a couple of sellouts. First 13,659 people poured into Pauley Pavilion, and a couple of weeks later, a Galen Center record for women’s or men’s action, with a standing-room crowd of 10,657.
And now we’ve just had both teams – now members of the Big Ten – play in the First Four, guests of honor at the season-opening Aflac Oui-Play event staged Monday in France and broadcast nationally here on ESPN.
The L.A.-in-Paris doubleheader gave us our first look at the third-ranked Trojans, who snuck past No. 20 Ole Miss, 68-66; and the No. 5 Bruins, who beat No. 17 Louisville, 66-59.
Watching from here, it hit me how much more pressure these teams will be under this season.
To do it again. To do it better.
It’s no longer: Ooooh, what do we have here? It’s: All right, what ya got now?
At USC, it’s no longer JuJu and The Nerds, more like JuJu and the Avengers. The Trojans bid adieu to their three impactful Ivy League graduate-transfers and replaced them with a who’s who of top-end talent eager to be a part of what Coach Lindsay Gottlieb is assembling.
Kiki Iriafen, once a Harvard-Westlake High standout, transferred from Stanford after just being recognized as the country’s best power forward. All-Pac-12 guard Talia Von Oelhoffen came over from Oregon State. And former Etiwanda High star Kennedy Smith, Watkins’ former high school rival, headlines a class featuring five freshmen who ranked 54 or better.
The thing about super teams, though, is that the stakes are higher and the puzzle more complicated. The notion that you would want to reduce the burden on the first-team All-American Watkins makes sense – but on the other hand, why would you ever want to take the ball out of her hands?
What we learned Monday (beside how to correctly pronounce IriaFEN) is that USC has a lot of work to do, all of that roster turnover resulting in 26 turnovers, more than in any game last season. Also, the Trojans have real resolve: “We came together,” Iriafen said, via Zoom, “and asked ourselves: ‘Do we wanna leave Paris with a W or with an L?’”
And this: Watkins will still leave her fingerprints all over a game: 27 points, 10 rebounds, nine turnovers, five blocked shots, four assists, three steals and a partridge in a pear tree.
On the other side of town, UCLA is due for a breakthrough.
Coach Cori Close’s teams have reached two consecutive Sweet 16s, participated in the NCAA Tournament in eight of her 13 seasons in Westwood and have been ranked in the top 25 every season but one.
But they’ve only gone as deep as the Elite Eight once, in 2018.
Why can’t this be the year UCLA duplicates that sort of success, or surpasses it? Why not, with Lauren Betts and Kiki Rice, ranked No. 1 and 2 nationally in their 2022 recruiting class, as pillars?
Now juniors, Betts is a dynamic 6-foot-7 center who transferred from Stanford last season and who makes takeaways look like takeaways, as if she’s taking candy from a baby. Rice – out, for now, with an injury – is a the hyper-competitive 5-11 guard who is among the most recognizable stars in women’s basketball’s brightening galaxy.
Add gamers Gabriela Jaquez and Londynn Jones plus another influx of talent: The Bruins’ second-ranked freshman class includes three five-star recruits, plus there’s Finland’s Elina Aarnisalo, who acquitted herself well in Rice’s absence Monday.
Bet on the Bruins, like USC, experiencing the rare privilege of real pressure this season.
It’s going to be fascinating – and probably pretty fun – to see how these teams tackle it.
Because this, from Close? A great answer: “I’m thrilled for the attention that women’s basketball is getting and for the growth of our game. I am thrilled to have people talking about women’s basketball and especially in Southern California, to have two top-five teams.
“We want people to be excited,” she continued, from Paris, via Zoom. “I want people to be talking about UCLA and USC, I want people to hold us to high standards. But the reality is that no one on the outside should be holding us to a higher standards than we have for our habits and character on the inside.”
If they want more more than we want it – and why wouldn’t they? – then there’s no telling how many millions more might tune in for a season-ending L.A.-in-Tampa event, where USC or UCLA – or USC and UCLA? – could be among the guests of honor at the Final Four.