LOS ANGELES – Sometimes, across the past couple of months, Rayah Marshall and Lindsay Gottlieb would walk into a Pac-12 arena and take a moment to realize just how far they’d come.

Wow, Marshall would think, sometimes discussing with Gottlieb. We got swept here my freshman year.

UCLA. Washington State. Colorado. All swept Marshall and USC, that first year, with Gottlieb at the helm. They were at the bottom of the conference, little progress made on paper away from years of futility.

Two years later, they walked into the Founder’s Club conference room in Galen Center Sunday as the final Pac-12 champions, sitting in front of packed-out tables full of donors, families, alumni and more. And after a banner season – 26-5, 13-5 in the Pac-12, beating Stanford twice – USC was officially tabbed as a No. 1 seed on Selection Sunday in the Portland Regional 3 bracket, set to host Texas A&M Corpus Christi at the Galen Center March 24.

It was an emotional Sunday afternoon, a slew of program alumni grouped around and filming the team, sitting in a row of chairs and fixated intently on a TV screen showing ESPN’s Selection Sunday coverage. Coach Lindsay Gottlieb, who said in a speech to the room that she was nervous on her drive over to Galen, stood and gripped the back of Rayah Marshall’s seat intently. Freshman JuJu Watkins’ legs bounced with nerves.

And when USC’s name was called, the room erupted, players roaring, Watkins dapping up McKenzie Forbes with a we’re here grin and reserve Aaliyah Gayles hitting an impromptu dance.

It’s a chance for the program’s rebirth to officially hit the national stage, an opportunity awaiting that hasn’t quite materialized since Cheryl Miller coached the Trojans to an Elite Eight back in the early 1990s. For an entire season, players have carried a massive chip on their shoulder, repeatedly mentioning how they were picked preseason to finish sixth in the Pac-12. Suddenly, they’re no longer underdogs, a target now set squarely on the Galen Center with a No. 1 seed on their backs.

“We didn’t think anyone would hand us a No. 1 seed, or even a 2 or 3 seed,” guard McKenzie Forbes said after USC’s win over Stanford last weekend. “We went and won the games we needed to win. I think it’s the same mentality for March.”

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The stage is set, too, for JuJu Watkins to truly ascend as the next face of collegiate women’s basketball, after a captivating freshman season averaging 27.0 points per game and drawing ever-increasing crowds to Galen. As viral as Watkins has become on social media, her scoring explosions piling up hundreds of thousands of views, the majority of USC’s games have still been confined to the Pac-12 Network.

If she and USC can keep dancing long into March and earning ever-increased exposure, it’ll bring not only immediate glory but also set up Watkins and USC as true pillars of the future in collegiate women’s basketball.

“To be able to showcase what we are on the national stage will be pretty cool … just for everyone to see what’s been going on here,” Forbes said March 5.