#1 UCLA up next on Sunday
The Minnesota Golden Gophers women’s basketball team fell in their first of back to back games against ranked teams losing to #4 USC 82-69 on Thursday night. Minnesota fell behind early trailing by ten after the opening quarter and while they made a valiant fourth quarter comeback, they just did not have enough firepower to stick round with the Trojans.
The first quarter belonged to Stanford transfer Kiki Iriafin. She scored nine points in a row for the Trojans to put them up 18-3 before the Gophers finally figured some things out. Grace Grocholski went on her own 6-0 run for the Gophers late in the quarter, and by the end of the opening ten minutes the USC had been cut to 25-15.
The second quarter was sloppy for both teams as both teams shot near 30% from the field. USC would extend their lead by two taking a 40—28 lead into the half.
The third quarter was full of runs—but unfortunately for the Gophers, USC had the longer and more frequent ones. USC started the quarter out on a 5-0 run all scored by Juju Watkins who Minnesota had kept in check in the first half. The Gophers countered with seven straight points to cut the lead back to ten points at 45-35. But Minnesota could not keep pace as the Trojans stretched their lead to 15 at the end of the quarter with Minnesota trailing 64-49.
Minnesota tried to come back in the 4th quarter opening with a 9-0 run to cut the USC lead to six with 8:10 left to play in the game. Unfortunately the Trojans put their foot on the gas and pulled away after that to end with an 82-69 win. Watkins would score 10 of her 20 points in the final quarter. Irifen led all scorers with 23 points. Minnesota was led by Sophie Hart with 18, while Mallory Heyer added 16 and Amaya Battle 14.
Minnesota’s schedule gets no easier as they travel across LA to face undefeated and #1 ranked UCLA on Sunday afternoon. Tip is set for 2 PM and the game will air live on Big Ten Network.