There is something different about a home opener when it arrives with momentum already attached. USC is not just stepping into the Galen Center on Sunday for its first home game of the season; it is doing so after a comfortable opening-night win, a celebrated return from JuJu Watkins, and a reminder that this roster still carries the expectations of a top-three team.
No. 3 USC hosts Utah State on Sunday, Nov. 8, at 5 p.m. PT, with the game set to air on Big Ten Network. It is also part of SLAM Night, which gives the Women of Troy’s first home appearance of the 2025-26 season a little extra stagecraft. The first 1,000 fans will also be part of the evening’s welcome-back atmosphere at the Galen Center.
The most obvious storyline is Watkins, who scored 21 points in 21 minutes in USC’s 100-68 win over UNLV on Nov. 2 at the Hall of Fame Series at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. That performance mattered not only because it came in her return to regular-season competition, but because it immediately reminded everyone why USC still sits in the No. 3 spot. She was injured on March 24, 2025, missed the 2025-26 season, and yet needed only a brief window to look like a player capable of tilting the ceiling of this team again.
That is the central point of USC’s early-season profile: the talent is not theoretical. It is already producing. Watkins is back, and Jazzy Davidson is no longer just a recruiting note from 2025. She arrives with the kind of recognition that changes how a freshman is discussed, having earned USBWA and WBCA National Freshman of the Year honors in the 2025-26 season. When a program adds that level of high-end production around a returning star, the broader picture becomes difficult to ignore.
Lindsay Gottlieb has to like the shape of it. USC does not need to reinvent itself in the home opener; it needs to keep sharpening the edges of a team that already showed it can score in bunches. The UNLV result gave a glimpse of that. The next question is how quickly the structure settles once the season moves from a showcase setting to the full rhythm of the schedule.
Utah State will not be asked to define USC’s season, but games like this still matter. Home openers often reveal whether a team is simply talented or actually organized enough to turn talent into something repeatable. USC enters with both the ranking and the reputation. Sunday offers the first real chance to show how those two things connect in the Galen Center.
