USC hopes to learn from a big loss to rival

Lindsay Gottlieb wanted her USC team to be tested by the best. That's why she put together one of the most grueling schedules in all of college basketball, with four games against teams ranked in the top four.

- RYAN KARTJE

GUARD Jazzy Davidson, USC's leading scorer, was held to 10 points by Gabriela Jaquez and UCLA.

(ERIC THAYER Los Angeles Times)

With three of those tests completed, the results haven't been what she or any of the Trojans hoped for.

USC lost by 17 to No. 2 South Carolina and 28 to No. 1 Connecticut. But neither of those losses was as demoralizing as Saturday night's setback, as No. 4 UCLA took No. 17 USC to the woodshed in an 80-46 loss that would go down as the largest margin of defeat in Gottlieb's tenure with the Trojans.

"We got it handed to us," Gottlieb said. "We can be honest and say this is an embarrassing loss." That might be understating it.

USC was outshot 53% to 27% by its rival, outrebounded 46 to 26 and outworked in pretty much every sense of the word.

The offense was out of sorts. The defense was disastrous, with UCLA regularly blowing past USCinthe post onits way to 46 points in the paint.