After Lindsey Gottileb’s “disrespected” take, analyst claims JuJu Watkins’ USC “seem concerned” about potentially facing Paige Bueckers’ UConn

The USC Trojans, coached by Lindsay Gottlieb, are having one of their best campaigns in program history. They won their first Big Ten Conference regular season title in the 2024-2025 season, the first trophy since their Pac-12 regular season championship in 1994. They are slated to be one of the four top-ranked seeds in the upcoming national tournament.

But Gottlieb shared the disrespect she feels that is being driven towards her program despite them garnering back-to-back No. 1 seeds.

College basketball analyst Robin Lundberg reflected on it in his recent YouTube video on Monday, March 17, where he claimed that the Trojans might be concerned about a familiar foe in their bracket.

"Barring a major upset, it means they will definitely meet in the Elite Eight, a rematch of last season where UConn got the win. Earlier this year, USC beat UConn, but it sounds to me that the Trojans are a little concerned that the rematch might not go the same way probably as they should be," Lundberg claimed (0:53).

He then played the clip of Gottlieb's interview in his video, where the 47-year-old was quoted as saying:

"For me, I never thought I'd be a one seed and feel disrespected. But, I thought the committee, I thought theere would be very little chance we would be the number four overall number one. So, we got a big game here on Saturday against UNCG and we'll handle it accordingly but, you tell me if you think that bracket that we got should've been the one that it was."

Gottlieb then said she had several questions about the selection committee's way of determining the JuJu Watkins-led squad's placement.

"People make decisions in women's basketball, and why they do what they do, and certainly with this committee I would love to ask some questions," she concluded.

Lundberg doubled down on his take that USC is having difficulties knowing that the Paige Bueckers-led UConn Huskies are in their way for a national title berth.

"What else could be behind that? I guess the general sense of disrespect, I can understand that. But, the biggest downside to being the number four, number one seed is that UConn is the number two seed in your region," he shared. (2:15)

The USC Trojans are out for retribution after missing out on the 2025 Big Ten conference tournament title

Although they've had an overall successful season thus far, the USC Trojans unfortunately couldn't stamp their imprint of a top ranking in the Big Ten conference as they were defeated by their rivals in the UCLA Bruins by five, 72-67, to miss out on this year's conference tournament title.

They are now preparing to open their March Madness run on Saturday, March 22, against the UNC Greensboro Spartans for the first round at home, before more than likely that they face Paige Bueckers and the UConn Huskies similarly to a season ago.