JuJu Watkins and No. 4 USC visit No. 2 UCLA in winner-take-all game for Big Ten regular-season title

It’s probably not what the Big Ten expected when the league opened its doors to UCLA and USC this season: two West Coast schools dominating the women’s basketball standings.

The crosstown rivals meet Saturday at sold-out Pauley Pavilion in a winner-take-all game to decide their new league’s regular-season champion.

“That gets me very excited about where we’ve brought the entire game,” UCLA coach Cori Close said Friday after practice. “Little kids, this is going to be all they know, is that the best college women’s basketball is being played through LA.”

USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb said: “We love it.”

The Bruins (27-1, 16-1 Big Ten) have dropped three in a row to the Trojans, most recently a 71-60 defeat two weeks ago at Galen Center that ended UCLA’s 23-game winning streak and knocked it from the No. 1 perch in the AP Top 25.

“I’m excited for our team to redeem ourselves,” UCLA center Lauren Betts said. “I think we learned a lot from the last time we played them. We’ve gotten so much better.”

The Trojans (25-2, 16-1) are 4-1 against Top 10 opponents and 2-0 on the road against them this season.

The NCAA selection committee made both schools a No. 1 seed in this week’s projection of the NCAA women’s tournament with UCLA as the overall top seed.

Neither team has lost a game since their Feb. 13 clash that left the Bruins angry for days.

“I honestly think we needed to be punched in the gut,” Close said. “We hadn’t had enough adversity to force us to go to different levels.”

USC star JuJu Watkins broke out of a shooting slump with 38 points, 11 rebounds and a career-best eight blocked shots against the Bruins.

Watkins said the key to the rematch is “not thinking about it too much.”

“You never know what the defense is going to throw at you and it’s just a matter of adjusting as quick as possible,” she said. “Just staying present, that’s the biggest thing, and then knowing what made we’re of and playing our best.”

The Bruins are 13-0 at home and eager to go into postseason play on a winning note.

“I don’t think there’s any pressure on us this game,” Betts said. “We just want to attack and we just want to dominate and that has nothing to do with rankings or how many games we’ve won.”

The Trojans’ only losses have been to then-sixth-ranked Notre Dame and at Iowa a month ago. Watkins would love to help deliver another blow to the Bruins on behalf of USC seniors Rayah Marshall and Clarice Akunwafo, whose defense frustrated Betts two weeks ago.

“The main thing is to go out there with enough hunger and tenacity that nothing can stop us,” Watkins said.

Close is in her 14th season trying to establish UCLA as a powerhouse women’s program at a school where the men’s program has a record 11 national championships. Gottlieb is in her fourth year of turning around a program that saw its greatest days in the early 1980s.

“It’s an incredible spot to be in, to be in a championship game on the last day of the regular season and to be able to control our own destiny,” Gottlieb said. “It’s at our fingertips.”

___

Get poll alerts and updates on AP Top 25 basketball throughout the season. Sign up here. AP women’s college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-womens-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/womens-college-basketball