LOS ANGELES — This was sheer deliverance, an undulating crowd of Trojans red roaring as Bruin blue walked off the floor in disappointment, a true milestone in Lindsay Gottlieb’s rebuild of the USC women’s basketball program checked firmly and thoroughly off the list.

As the buzzer sounded in a 73-65 victory over their crosstown rivals on Sunday, senior guard Kayla Padilla flexed her muscles for all they were worth and bellowed at a sold-out Galen Center crowd, turning back with the rest of her swarming teammates to freshman hero Juju Watkins. And Watkins toppled to the floor as her legs simply gave out after exhausting every shred of energy and emotion within her 6-foot-2 frame, later grinning exorbitantly at the JumboTron camera.

And in custom with several post-game occurrences this season, Gottlieb was handed the stadium public address microphone, addressing a crowd of Trojans faithful that stayed to soak in a moment that seemed as if it would never end.

“Trojans, just look around,” Gottlieb said, gripping the mic and pacing around a crowded midcourt. “They used to tell us that no one came to watch women’s basketball at USC.”

And Galen erupted. Gottlieb hardly needed to say anything else; those words, hanging in the air of a vibrating Galen Center, spoke entirely for themselves. That Sunday’s attendance mark of 10,657, watching the Women of Troy (13-1 overall, 3-1 Pac-12) topple UCLA (14-1, 3-1) for the first time in years, was a record in the arena’s history – for either a women’s or men’s game. Galen’s capacity is listed at 10,258.

It was the crowning moment in Gottlieb’s three-year program turnaround thus far, from 12-16 in 2021 to a tournament appearance last year to a current no. 6 ranking in the AP Top 25 poll. Riding a surge of national interest in collegiate women’s basketball and a perfectly-timed rising star in Watkins, USC women’s basketball has become the unquestioned premier event at Galen – even with a men’s team featuring the son of the most famous basketball player in the world.

“I want them to enjoy this – this is a big deal,” Gottlieb said Sunday, postgame. “We beat the No. 2 team at home last year, too – and you don’t get those games back. Right, like, this was incredible … our rival, and the atmosphere here, we’re not going to get this back and we’re going to enjoy it.”

But.

Record scratch. Look forward for a moment. After the exhaustive sheer emotion of that win over UCLA, USC’s reward is … a weekend road trip against two of the best teams in the Pac-12.

First comes Utah (12-5, 2-3), a team that is 20th in the AP poll but that Gottlieb believes is a top-10 team in the nation – and it’s easy to understand her logic. The Utes ranked fourth in NCAA Division I, as of Friday morning, in field goal percentage and eighth in points per game. Their offense is “really high-powered,” as Gottlieb put it, and this is just as scintillating of an on-court matchup as UCLA was last Sunday. Alissa Pili, a 6-foot-2 former USC transfer who played for Gottlieb in the first year of the Trojans’ rebuild in 2021, has become a national sensation due to dominant scoring (21.9 points per game) and representation for her native Alaskan culture. It’s possible Utah might have senior guard Isabel Palmer back Friday night, too, according to the Deseret News – only making things more difficult for USC defensively.

Then USC will travel to Boulder on Sunday to take on third-ranked Colorado (15-1, 5-0), now sneakily the highest-ranked team in the Pac-12. It’s the Trojans’ third opponent in a row that runs through a dominant big – UCLA’s Betts, Pili and the Buffs’ Aaronette Vonleh, who averages 15.1 ppg and is the younger sister of former NBA lottery pick Noah Vonleh.

“Only in the Pac-12,” Gottlieb said Sunday, “do you get to play No. 2 and then go play two top-10 teams.”

It will be a trying road trip for USC, fresh off that grueling win over UCLA, with Watkins continuing to deal with cramps in multiple games. And her team, Gottlieb told the Southern California News Group on Wednesday, didn’t practice after last Sunday’s game and took a moment in Tuesday’s practice to “recognize just what an incredible thing that was.”

“We have no problem acknowledging that,” Gottlieb said. “But I think the competitiveness of the players on our team necessitates that you keep it moving.”