USC women’s basketball hopes to go on run with Jazzy Davidson cleared

Earlier this week, the USC women’s basketball team delivered essential news about its postseason fate.

Jazzy Davidson was back.

The star freshman’s return after suffering a shoulder injury in the Big Ten Tournament was far more crucial than where the team was seeded or who it played in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.

With Davidson cleared to play, the Trojans have a chance to go on a run.

She’s been perhaps the best freshman in the country this season, her array of playmaking skills helping her team withstand the loss of injured superstar JuJu Watkins.

Davidson was clearly at less than full strength the rest of the game after injuring her shoulder early in the Trojans’ loss to Washington in the Big Ten Tournament. That setback was USC’s fourth straight defeat, dropping its seeding and raising concerns about its ability to succeed in the postseason.

Coach Lindsay Gottlieb said there was no common theme in those losses, pinpointing what had gone wrong in each one.

Turnovers had been the big problem during a road loss against then-No. 10 Ohio State.

Three days later, Penn State guard Kiyomi McMiller “went nutso” — Gottlieb’s words — by scoring 40 points to help her team beat the Trojans.

In its final home game, USC lost by 23 points to second-ranked UCLA, and there was no shame in that margin given the quality of the opponent.

Perhaps most concerning was the variety of things that went wrong during the Big Ten Tournament loss to Washington beyond Davidson’s injury.

“It’s disappointing that it took us a while to really, really be in the fight,” Gottlieb said after her team’s 76-64 loss to the Huskies at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. “And by that, I mean the possessions and plays that are outside the X’s and O’s, the rebounding, the 50/50 balls. I do think we responded and tried to show up a little better in the second half, but against a really good team, it’s a little too late.”

The upside to losing so early in the conference tournament was not only additional rest and recovery time for Davidson but more practice time to work on things that the team will need to get right the rest of the season.

“The concerns are we have to rebound from [the] jump,” Gottlieb said. “The ball has to move. We have to get to great open shots every time. We have to be the toughest team for 40 minutes. This conference challenges you in a way that is very unique with 12 NCAA Tournament teams, and those who are not are still really good teams.

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“The concern is that we figure it out. We get them fired up. We practice, and we come out, wherever they send us and whoever we play against, and we’re the team that is as sharp as we can possibly be.”

The Trojans hope they can ride their Big Four of Davidson, Kara Dunn, Kennedy Smith and Londynn Jones to a deep run after learning that it would remain intact upon Davidson being cleared.

“I think we’re confident in who we are,” Jones said. “We know the people that we have, the staff that we have. I think when you lean on that and when you go back to what you know you can do, that always helps.

“We lost four in a row, but that’s adversity that you face down the road. And it happens. It happens to every team. Like I said, building from that, seeing where we can grow from that. And not really worried about whoever we play in March Madness. We have to step out and show what we’re capable of doing.”

Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: nypost.com