USC's talented freshmen take the spotlight in Sweet 16 win over K-State

It's been clear all season that for as deep as this USC women's basketball team is, it was built around the incredible one-two combo of JuJu Watkins and Kiki Iriafen.

One of those two -- most often Watkins, the consensus first-team All-American and United States Basketball Writers Association national player of the year -- led the team in scoring in all but one game before Saturday. When she went down with a torn ACL on Monday night, it was Iriafen, the third-team All-American, who rose up with her best game of the season to lead the way.

But coach Lindsay Gottlieb has also been clear from the start with her loaded freshman class that this was their time too and they were very much a factor in the sky-high potential of this team.

Never was that truer than Saturday night.

With Watkins watching from home and Iriafen struggling through a rare off-shooting night, the freshmen led the way to send No. 1-seeded USC to a 67-61 win over No. 5-seed Kansas State and back into the Elite Eight for the second straight season.

The Trojans (31-3) now get an Elite Eight rematch with UConn (34-3) in Spokane, Washington, on Monday night.

Thanks in large part to freshmen Kennedy Smith (19 points and 3 steals), Avery Howell (18 points, 8 rebounds and 4 steals) and Kayleigh Heckel (8 points), while veteran center Rayah Marshall chipped in 10 points, 9 rebounds and 3 blocks.

"What can I say about our freshman class? They're winners above everything else," Gottlieb said. "I got a text here that said 'Kennedy Effing Smith' and I was like, 'Can I say that in the media?' ... They're incredibly tough and they are winners, and that's what I told them before the game and they earned every bit of it."

Coming off a 36-point performance last game, Iriafen hit just 3 of 13 shots to finish with 7 points and 8 rebounds.

USC trailed 30-28 at halftime and 39-34 midway through the third quarter before Howell hit a 3-pointer to kickoff a 12-0 run in which she had 5 points and Iriafen had 4 of her points in that spurt while Smith capped it with a steal and fastbreak score.

"We recruited this group to play, and I remember getting on a Zoom with the families -- seven [freshmen] players and their families heading into before they came over the summer -- and I said, 'Look, we went to the Elight Eight. Now, the bar's been raised. The bar's been raised for our returners and the bar's been raised for the expectations of people coming in, the bar's raised for whoever we go at in the ...