It was a game to remember for Londynn Jones. She played with confidence and showed her dribbling skills and displaying her all-around skills as she finished the game with a career-high 28 points in the USC women’s basketball team’s 86-39 win over Cal Poly on Thursday night at Galen Center.
In the first part of the game, Jones was perfect on offense while aggressively defending every time the Mustangs had the ball. When Cal Poly attacked, she came up with steals and completed the play with a field goal, sometimes even adding one more point on a foul.
“I’m just happy we’re figuring it out, starting to finally put the pieces together,” she said. “I know that’s something we’ve been emphasizing in practice, just watching films and putting the pieces together.”
Jones finished the game making 11 out of 16 field goals, and Jazzy Davidson scored 17 points and had nine rebounds.
The Trojans (8-3) looked sluggish in the first half, with Davidson making only three of 11 field goals, and the Mustangs (2-9) grabbing 15 rebounds. But as the game progressed, the USC defense forced Cal Poly to run out the shot clock on multiple occasions and caused 27 turnovers while scoring 39 points off of them.
“We sort of played the way we wanted to, for a majority of the game, and that’s encouraging,” coach Lindsay Gottlieb said.
After losing to Connecticut 79-51 on Saturday, Gottlieb wanted to see her team play with intention while defending, she wanted them to pressure on the ball, and she wanted to see participation from all the players on the court, at once.
Offensively, she wanted her team to do the simple things better. Gottlieb wanted them to create space and have better movement.
“I saw that in practice and I think we saw a lot of it in the game tonight, too,” she said. “But, it’ll continue to be a work in progress.
The Trojans started the third quarter with 10 unanswered points. Cal Poly scored only five points in the quarter, allowing the Trojans to extend their advantage, closing out the third quarter with a 43-point lead, 71-28.
The Trojans finished the game with 15 steals and the bench scoring 45 points. As a whole, the team finished the game with 44 rebounds, with the majority of them coming from the offense.
“I thought our defensive intensity created more open looks for us,” Gottlieb said.
Yakiya Milton was a big part of that with her eight rebounds with four blocks in 10 minutes of play. One of the four blocks came when she stopped a Mustang drive to the basket and protected the rim. Something that Gottlieb preached during practice, she said.
“I try to capitalize on any opportunity I’m given,” Milton said. “I’m trying to play with as much energy and intensity as I can.”
As the Trojans look ahead to a stretch of Big 10 games against Nebraska and UCLA, Gottlieb doesn’t see a starting five. She sees the strengths of her team to be how deep their roster is.
“No one played 30 minutes at all and maybe that’s a little bit atypical, but we do believe that we can play different kinds of lineups, different people who have different skill sets, different looks,” she said.
And with the help of Jones, who has been to the Final Four with UCLA and has played in big conference games, she knows the team will feed off her energy and play with confidence
“I mean, she was wearing the wrong colors or the other colors,” Gottlieb quipped. “But you know, she’s been in situations and that experience is premium.”
“She’s going to bring that confidence and swagger no matter what,” she added.