UConn vs USC Odds, Predictions & Best Bets (Elite Eight)

• The #1 USC Trojans sans JuJu Watkins face the #2 UConn Huskies on Monday in the Elite Eight in Spokane
• The Huskies are massive favorites against a Trojan team missing the national player-of-the-year favorite
• Below, see the UConn vs USC odds, predictions, and best bets for March 31st

What was shaping out to be an all-time classic Elite Eight game between the #1 USC Trojans (31-3) and #2 UConn Huskies (34-3) was tragically derailed in the second round of the 2025 NCAA Tournament when Trojan star and national player-of-the-year favorite JuJu Watkins (23.9 PPG, 6.8 RPG, 3.4 APG) suffered a season-ending leg injury.

Without the 6’2 sophomore in the lineup, the #1 Trojans find themselves massive underdogs against the #2 Huskies in the Regional 4 final in Spokane on Monday night (6:00 pm PT/9:00 pm ET tipoff).

UConn vs USC Odds

The current UConn vs USC point spread favors the Huskies by 14.5 points. On the moneyline, Paige Bueckers and company a unbettably short -2000 favorites, giving UConn a 95.24% implied win probability. The Trojans come back as +1000 underdogs (9.09% implied win probability). The game total is sitting at 137.5 with -110 odds each way.

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USC already owns a victory over UConn, and that victory, which came in Storrs, was one of the most-impressive wins of the season by any team. The Trojans left Connecticut with a 72-70 win. But Watkins had 34.7% of the teams points (25, plus six rebounds and five assists).

UConn enters the Elite Eight as the -125 favorite to win the national championship, well ahead of second-favorite South Carolina (+220). USC is a +5000 longshot, the worst odds of any of the six remaining teams.

The winner of tonight’s game will face Regional 1-winner, #1 UCLA, in the Final Four on Friday, April 4. The other national semifinal will feature Regional 2-winner South Carolina against either #2 TCU or #1 Texas, who meet in the Regional 3 final at 7:00 pm ET tonight in Birmingham, AL.

Trojans Surviving Without Watkins

USC’s first full game without their star was in the Sweet 16 against #5 Kansas State. But keep in mind that Watkins suffered her devastating leg injury just five minutes into USC’s second-round game against #9 Mississippi State. So, in reality, USC has played two games without Watkins.

Both were positive building blocks for Lindsay Gottlieb’s team. They routed the Bulldogs 96-59, getting a brilliant 36-point, nine-rebound performance from senior forward and second-leading scorer Kiki Iriafen (18.2 PPG, 8.4 RPG, 1.9 APG). USC easily covered as 18.5-point favorites.

The Trojans again covered the spread against K-State in the Sweet 16, emerging with a 67-61 win as slim 1.5-point chalk. Encouragingly, that win came without Iriafen putting in an all-world performance. USC’s de facto go-to scorer without Watkins, Iriafen was limited to just seven points on an ugly 3-of-13 performance from the field. Kennedy Smith (9.6 PPG, 4.3 RPG, 2.0 APG) had a game-high 19 while freshman Avery Howell had a career-high 18 starting in place of Watkins.

UConn vs USC Ratings & Score Prediction

Even without taking the Watkins injury into consideration, the nation’s leading analytics site for women’s basketball (barttorvik.com) projected a fairly comfortable UConn victory, giving the Huskies an eight-point cushion (72-64).

Sportsbooks don’t take Torvik as gospel, at least not to the extent that KenPom rules men’s college basketball opening lines but, for all intents and purposes, the Watkins injury is accounting for roughly six to eight points in the UConn/USC point spread.

UConn vs USC Picks

• UConn -14.5 (-110)

The Huskies have been absolutely rolling opponents in the tournament and, really, for the better part of the last 3.5 months. The Huskies have only lost one game in 2025 (an 80-76 true-road game at Tennessee on Feb. 6), going 24-1 in that span with 21 of those victories coming by at least 20 points. All 24 wins were by double-digits.

There has been plenty of stiff competition for UConn, as well. They decimated South Carolina – the second-rated team in the country at Torvik – 87-58 on the road on Feb. 16.

The early-season game between these teams was a lifetime ago. UConn was the second-rated team in the country at that point. Now, South Carolina – a team UConn just blew out on the road – is the only team in the Huskies’ stratosphere, statistically.