Woods’ Late Basket Helps Rescue USC

Denise Woods made a layup with 41 seconds remaining to lift USC to a 61-56 victory over Creighton in its home opener on Friday.

The Trojans (2-0) turned the ball over with 1:18 remaining and Creighton’s Krissie Spanhiemer tied the score at 56. That set the stage for Woods’ winning basket.

Tashara Carter led USC with 13 points and Ayeshia Smith had 12. Creighton (1-2) was led by Angela Timmons with 16 points.

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In women’s games involving Top 25 teams: Tamika Catchings, sidelined because of foul trouble for part of the second half, made a decisive three-point shot with 1:09 remaining as No. 5 Tennessee (2-1) scored the final 11 points and defeated No. 23 Stanford (2-1), 79-73, at Palo Alto. . . . No. 1 Connecticut (3-0) was a 109-66 winner over No. 14 Old Dominion (2-1) at Storrs, Conn. . . . Tawana McDonald had 23 points and 16 rebounds to lead No. 3 Georgia (5-0) to an 85-44 victory over Stephen F. Austin (2-1) in the Dead River Classic at Orono, Maine. . . . Tynesha Lewis scored 16 points and freshman Chayla Chones had 15 to lead No. 7 North Carolina State (4-0) to a 62-42 victory over Drake (1-2) at Cancun, Mexico. . . . Davalyn Cunningham scored a career-high 17 points to lift No. 8 Rutgers past Northeastern, 61-39, at Piscataway, N.J., in the season opener for both teams . . . LaQuanda Barksdale scored 21 points to lead No. 10 North Carolina (2-1) past East Tennessee State (2-1), 82-55, at Chapel Hill, N.C. . . . Tasha Hamilton scored 20 points to lead No. 11 Auburn (3-0) to an 82-41 victory over Mercer (2-1) at Auburn, Ala. . . . Aleah Johnson scored 21 points to lead five scorers in double figures as the No. 17 Texas Tech (3-0) (3-0) defeated Southwest Texas State (2-1), 102-44, at Lubbock, Texas. . . . Katie Douglas had a game-high 31 points to lead No. 20 Purdue (4-0) past Florida (1-1), 90-50, at West Lafayette, Ind. . . . Tere Williams scored 18 points as No. 21 Virginia Tech (2-1) defeated Southern Utah (1-2), 63-55, in the first round of the Pepsi Shootout at Eugene, Ore. . . . Marie Ferdinand scored 16 points to led Louisiana State (2-1) to an 80-63 victory over St. Bonaventure (0-3) at Moraga, Calif.