The UW women hit rock bottom two weeks ago against the Bay Area schools and stayed there last week against the Oregon schools.

But in their most recent loss to Oregon State, they showed signs of a change for the better.

After losing three straight games by more than 20 points, Washington (5-10, 1-4 Pac-10) resurrected itself in the second half against the Beavers. Things may finally be looking up for the Dawgs when they face off against USC tonight in Los Angeles, Calif.

“For some reason, we haven’t quite put two halves together yet,” UW coach Tia Jackson told reporters. “[We’re] definitely anticipating that happening when we go down to face the L.A. schools.”

Junior guard Sami Whitcomb believes the recognition of that problem is a good thing.

“We played a solid second half against Oregon State and I think that that is a good first step in the right direction,” Whitcomb said.

The Huskies’ struggles may be partially due to injuries, but Whitcomb doesn’t think that should be an excuse.

“It certainly posed some problems for us in terms of having to play some young people that maybe wouldn’t have otherwise played — people that played out of position,” Whitcomb said. “[But] that can’t affect how hard we play on defense and all the little things we can still do.”

Coach Jackson believes the injuries created setbacks as well, but she is ready to move on.

“It’s just been a lot that we’ve been hit with, in addition to what’s going on with the record,” Jackson said. “So right now, we’re just looking forward to having our full team together so we can go back to having the chemistry that we had on the floor.”

The Husky offense will be bolstered by the full return of freshman guard Kristi Kingma and freshman forward Liz Lay’s continuously improving knee. Junior guard Sara Mosiman is still day-to-day.

However, the Huskies lost freshman forward Charmaine Barlow for the year due to suspension for breaking team rules, one of them academic. Barlow provided a spark from the bench at times and with her hustle plays on the court.

“There’s a lot of distractions right now for the team,” Jackson said. “We’ve got to find a way to keep the kids focused on the positives.”

In L.A., the Huskies will face two teams with varying degrees of experience, USC being the older team and UCLA the more inexperienced.

“USC is a pretty solid veteran team at this point,” Whitcomb said. “They bring in a couple of real good freshmen to start as well.”

The Trojans (9-7, 3-2 Pac-10) have four players averaging double digits in scoring: seniors Camille LeNoir and Nadia Parker and freshmen Briana Gilbreath and Ashley Corral. Parker and Gilbreath average more than five rebounds per game, as does junior Aarika Hughes.

“UCLA was a really young team last year, and they were a good team then,” Whitcomb said. “They’ll probably be pretty strong again this year. They have a new coach, so that is something to take into consideration; they’re probably going through a lot of changes.”

Sophomore Doreena Campbell leads the Bruins in scoring (12.4 points per game) and senior Chinyere Ibekwe leads in rebounds (8.1 per game).

Reach reporter Honsen Lin at sports@dailyuw.com.