Trip Down Memory Lane Awaits Women’s Basketball Saturday Afternoon At USC

• The Texas Southern women’s basketball team will face USC on Saturday afternoon as this marks the first meeting between both schools.

• Fourth-year head coach Cynthia Cooper-Dyke is a USC legend as a player, national champion and a former head coach at USC from 2013-17. She sparked the Women of Troy to back-to-back NCAA championships in 1983 and 1984.

• Cooper-Dyke is back on the TSU sidelines for the third straight season. She led TSU to the SWAC Regular Season Championship for the first time in school history in 2012-13 in addition to a second-place finish in 2019-20. The team made it to the semifinals of the SWAC Tournament (before COVID-19) in 2020 and a quarterfinals appearance in 2021. •

TSU will keep its bags packed as the first eight games on the schedule are on the road. TSU’s first home contest isn’t until Wednesday, Dec. 22 against Virginia.

• Saturday’s game marks the third contest in 10 days for TSU. TSU was supposed to have a pair of games in California but Thursday’s contest at UCLA was canceled due to COVID-19. Next week’s twogame tournament at Tulane was also canceled due to COVID-19 concerns at Tulane.

• TSU will face off against teams from six conferences in 2021-22. TSU will square off against teams from the Pac-12 (4), ACC, Conference USA, SEC, American and Big 12. TSU is a de facto member of the Pac-12 this year with games at Arizona, Colorado and USC.

• TSU head coach Cynthia Cooper-Dyke has faced USC as a head coach at Prairie View A&M in 2006-07 while also having history with USC head coach Lindsey Gottlieb. Cooper-Dyke is 0-1 against USC and 3-4 against Gottlieb as she was the head coach at California while Cooper-Dyke was at USC.

• TSU has four players from the state of California on the roster as three hail from the Los Angeles area. Guard Shalexxus Aaron is the lone Californian on the roster who has faced UCLA as she transferred to TSU from USC. TSU assistant Alexis Lloyd also faced UCLA as a player at USC.

• USC is 4-1 all-time against the SWAC with games against Florida A&M, Grambling State and Prairie View A&M.

• TSU was picked to finish sixth while guard Ataiya Bridges was named to the 2021-22 Preseason All-SWAC Second Team.