One region in the NCAA women’s basketball tournament changed in a second on Monday night when USC sophomore star guard JuJu Watkins tore her ACL.
“I'd be lying if I told you that I wasn’t rattled seeing JuJu on the floor crying,” USC head coach Lindsay Gottlieb told reporters after a 96–59 win over Mississippi State on Monday. “This is a human game, so I obviously tried my best to be what I need to be for the team, but internally it’s a lot.”
Top-seeded USC (30–3) pressed from the Watkins injury in the early minutes of Monday’s game to a lopsided victory, but the Trojans will have a tough road ahead. That starts with No. 5 seed Kansas State (28–7) on March 29, and the winner gets either No. 2 seed UConn or No. 3 seed Oklahoma.
USC will have to travel that road without the frontrunner for National Player of the Year. Watkins averaged 23.9 points, 6.8 rebounds, and 3.4 assists this season, and she had her biggest games against top teams this year. That included 38 and 29 points in two games against rival UCLA and 25 points against UConn on Feb. 21.
Once the No. 1-ranked team in the country, USC will need to lean on senior forward Kiki Iriafen, who had 36 points and nine rebounds against Mississippi State. Iriafen averages 18.6 points, 8.5 rebounds, and 1.9 assists per game.
“Kiki, I think, is one of the best players in the country,” MSU head coach Sam Purcell told reporters afterward. “We had our center on her, a guard on her, we doubled her. We went 2–3, we went man-to-man, we trapped her.”
“We never stopped her. We threw the whole kitchen sink and the house [at her]. But she was just electric,” he added. “Elite players know when they need to rise to the occasion.”
After Watkins and Iriafen, no other player on the Trojans roster averages double figures. Freshman guard Kennedy Smith averages 9.2 points and 4.4 rebounds per game, and senior center Rayah Marshall averages 7.4 points and 8.2 rebounds per night. Avery Howell, a freshman guard, averages 7.1 points per game as the team’s fifth-leading scorer.
“When you throw a bunch of talented people on a team, it doesn’t become a team until you work through some things,” Gottlieb said. “And I always thought throughout the year that if we had something we had to work on, it would be when things didn’t go right right away; we sometimes stressed out. And how about this? You know, something didn’t go right for us.”
“You never want anyone to go down, especially someone like JuJu, that we all lean on in so many ways,” Gottlieb added.
Kansas State already knocked out No. 4 seed Kentucky 80–79 in overtime on Monday, but K-State has also had trouble with top-25 teams throughout the season. The Wildcats beat Utah in January and TCU in February but lost to Baylor, Duke, Oklahoma State, and West Virginia twice.
Either Oklahoma (27–7) or UConn in the Spokane region provides an even bigger challenge if the Trojans make it that far. Oklahoma beat No. 6 seed Iowa 96–62 convincingly, and the Sooners have 11 wins in the past 12 games.
UConn (33–3) became an instant favorite to win the Spokane region with longtime legendary head coach Geno Auriemma and senior star guard Paige Bueckers. USC won the first meeting 72–70 on Dec. 21, but that was with Watkins on the floor and the Trojans holding Bueckers to 22 points.
A possible No. 1 pick in next month’s WNBA Draft, Bueckers averages 19.6 points, 4.7 rebounds, and 4.6 assists per game, and she shoots 53.3 percent from the field. However, even Bueckers and the Huskies won’t have the Trojans waving the white flag yet.
“I feel like this team—we’re just trying to do whatever we can to keep it going, and I think we’re very unselfish,” Gottlieb said.
