USC vs UCLA: How to watch, preview, predictions for women’s Big Ten tournament final

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How to Watch How USC got here How UCLA got here Odds

The Los Angeles City Championship, the Crosstown Showdown, the Battle of Los Angeles, whatever you want to call the rivalry between the USC Trojans and UCLA Bruins, it’s happening today for the third time this season.

However this time, it’s happening nearly 2,000 miles away in Indianapolis, Indiana at the Big Ten tournament. It’s a matchup that has implications not only for who hoists the trophy after the game, but NCAA tournament seeding and pride of an entire city.

So far this season, the Trojans have had the upper hand, defeating the Bruins twice during the regular season, their first in the Big Ten conference. In each of the two previous matchups, USC entered the game as the underdog, according to the Associated Press’ weekly poll. This time, USC enters as the No. 2 team in the country and No. 1 overall seed in the conference tournament. UCLA is ranked fourth in the AP poll team behind Texas, USC and UConn.

USC deleted UCLA twice in the regular season. Trojans superstar guard JuJu Watkins was everything you would expect from a National Player of the Year frontrunner. In the first game, Watkins nearly had a triple-double with 38 points, 11 rebounds, 8 blocks and 5 assists in a 71-60 win on home court.

When the game went to UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion, Watkins had 30 points and five assists, leading the Trojans to an even more impressive 80-67 road win to secure sole ownership of the Big Ten regular season title.

Both losses to USC have weighed heavily on the mind of head coach Cori Close and the Bruins.

“You don’t have enough time for the things that have been eating me,” said Close about what went wrong against the Trojans so far this season.

UCLA gets one last chance to beat their crosstown rivals. To make the moment more important, the winner of Sunday’s tournament finale could determine who earns the No. 1 overall seed in March Madness, with the current No. 1 ranked Longhorns facing the South Carolina Gamecocks in the SEC tournament title game.

In the latest NCAA tournament committee top-16 seed release, UCLA was No. 1 with Texas and USC behind the Bruins in two and three. Since then, the Trojans beat the Bruins on the last day of the regular season. Should the Gamecocks beat the Longhorns this afternoon, and the Trojans win, it could swing USC to the overall No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament and a slightly easier run of games as a key benefit.

Here are how the teams made it to the last day of the Big Ten Tournament, how to watch and who is favored:

How to Watch

Date: Sunday, March. 9, 2025
Time: 4:30 p.m. ET
Where: Gainbridge Fieldhouse, Indianapolis, Indiana
Television: CBS
Stream: Paramount+

How USC got here

Head coach Lindsay Gottlieb’s Trojans entered the tournament against the No. 9 seeded Indiana Hoosiers and had to face the sharpshooting side from an hour south of Indianapolis without Big Ten All-Defensive Team forward Rayah Marshall. USC scratched Marshall’s availability before tipoff due to illness. That meant the inside game of the Trojans lacked one of its key pieces.

Playing in front of a mostly home crowd, the Hoosiers went into halftime down four points but came out of the locker room as the aggressors. Indiana took only three shots from beyond the arc in the third quarter, instead opting to go inside to exploit Marshall’s absence and it sent Indiana to the line, a lot.

Indiana went 10-of-10 from the free throw line and had a lead five minutes into the period. USC pushed their lead back up but Indiana kept getting whistles and entered the fourth quarter down two points. However, USC lever gave that lead up in the fourth, earning a spot in the semifinals.

Saturday was an even bigger test for the Trojans, facing the No. 5 Michigan Wolverines, led by a trio of freshmen who play basketball years beyond their class. Guard Syla Swords is one of the three and after missing the first game against USC in the regular season, Swords made up for lost time and led all scorers with 29 points.

Defensively, Marshall returned but the Maize and Blue of Michigan had a singular focus on not letting Watkins beat them. Watkins is known for finding space and getting to the rim and the Wolverines did not want to let her even have time to read the defense.

“We say not her best day because she’s got three and four bodies on her all the time, and to still end up with 20 and 11,” said Gottlieb.

Of Watkins’ 20 points, 11 came in the fourth quarter, meaning Michigan’s plan was working for the first 30 minutes of the game. However, the rest of USC is pretty good too and kept with the aggressive attack of Michigan.

Forward Kiki Iriafen led the Trojans with 25 points and freshman guard Avery Howell added 11 points. In the fourth quarter, the Trojans pulled away to an eventual 82-70 victory.

How UCLA got here

The Bruins had their challenges in the tournament too, at least on Friday. UCLA faced the No. 10 Nebraska Cornhuskers and the duo of freshman guard Britt Prince and senior center Alexis Markowski.

UCLA’s 85-74 win was a story of two runs. In the first quarter, the underdog Huskers hung with the No. 2 seeded Bruins until the final two minutes of the quarter. That’s when Big Ten Sixth Player of the Year Janiah Barker got to the free throw line that began an eight-point run. Markowski broke the run with 1:03 left in the first quarter but UCLA built a 12-point lead off the run that caused Nebraska to push even harder.

In the second quarter, Prince and Markowski combined for 11 of Nebraska’s 22 points and led a Cornhuskers attack that outscored the Bruins by eight in the period. UCLA still had a lead at halftime, but by only two points.

The second run came in the third quarter, with four players contributing to an eight-point run. On top of that run, 6-foot-7 center Lauren Betts scored seven points and grabbed five rebounds in the quarter and pulled away in the fourth quarter. Betts ended the day with a game high 28 points with 13 rebounds and 5 assists.

Then, on Saturday, it was not much of a competition at all against the No. 3 Ohio State Buckeyes. After forward Cotie McMahon and Ohio State played in a defensive battle late Friday night, defeating the Iowa Hawkeyes 60-59, the Scarlet and Gray struggled mightily against the Bruins.

Ohio State held Betts to no points in the first quarter, but shot an abysmal 21.4 percent, while the players around Betts went 10-of-14 from the floor to end the first quarter with a 22-8 lead.

It would get worse for the Buckeyes. By the end of the third quarter, Ohio State was down by a program record 37 points after 30 minutes. They were also down freshman point guard Jaloni Cambridge, who rolled her ankle in the third quarter and McMahon, who appeared to hurt her wrist falling on a rebound attempt. Neither made it back into the game but it was already over anyway.

The Buckeyes went on a 10-point run to end the game, but that just made the loss look slightly better, still losing 75-46. UCLA guard Londynn Jones scored 22 points for the Bruins, nearly a career high. Jones led all scorers and went 6-of-12 from beyond the arc.