Gottlieb played college basketball at Brown and said she had a teammate whose daughter had to shelter in place in a library basement.
USC women’s basketball head coach Lindsay Gottlieb opened her postgame news conference after the No. 16 Trojans’ loss to No. 1 UConn on Saturday night with her thoughts on the mass shooting that took place at Brown University.
Providence police said Sunday morning that they had detained a person of interest after two people were killed and nine others were wounded in a shooting on campus during finals. The person is in their 30s. The shooting happened in an engineering building on campus as people in the area were told to shelter in place for hours afterward as police looked for the shooter.
Gottlieb played basketball at Brown and said that she checked her phone after the game to see many text messages about the shooting. She said she felt she needed to address the shooting because it was more important than basketball and that “we can all be better.”
“It doesn’t need to be this way,” Gottlieb said. “Sending thoughts and prayers to my teammates who have kids there. To the parents that have to worry about their children, I’m just going to end it with that, but just to say we’re the only country that lives this way. The college football cycle has been in the news a million times and are we going to report about this? It’s the guns. We’re the only country that lives this way. Parents should not be worried about their kid — I have a teammate who has a daughter who is in the basement of a library because they don’t know what’s going on there. And she’s flying there tomorrow."
Police said the shooter had a handgun and fired more than 40 rounds during the incident. The mayor of Providence, Brett Smiley, said that the building’s outside doors were unlocked but that access to the classrooms where exams were taking place required a badge.
Gottlieb has been USC’s coach since 2021 after she spent two seasons as an assistant for the Cleveland Cavaliers following her time as Cal’s head coach. She played at Brown from 1995 through 1999 and immediately got into coaching after her collegiate playing career was over.
USC lost 79-51 at home to UConn on Saturday night as the Trojans play the season without injured star JuJu Watkins. She injured her knee in the 2025 NCAA tournament before USC fell to UConn in the Elite Eight a season ago. Watkins, who suffered a torn ACL, will miss the entire 2025-26 season.
Category: General Sports
