LOS ANGELES — The grimace we hadn’t seen before.
Like JuJu Watkins’ silky Euro steps and her 50-point banger and ridiculous scoring stats – 1,000 collegiate points faster than anyone in history – it was something new.
But a grimace like this, no, we hadn’t ever wanted to see. We won’t be able to unsee.
Watkins’ right knee crumpled beneath her as she drove with 4:43 to play in the first quarter of the top-seeded USC women’s basketball team’s 96-59 second-round blowout of No. 9 seed Mississippi State on Monday night at the Galen Center. Immediately, Watkins grabbed her right knee. And grimaced. It was awful. Sickening. Devastating.
“I would be lying if I told you I wasn’t rattled, seeing JuJu on the court and crying,” USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb said.
USC’s official in-game statement was that Watkins was being evaluated by USC Keck Medicine staff and would not return to competition Monday. But the news not long after the game confirmed that she had suffered a season-ending injury.
It happened while Watkins was fast-breaking, like a jet ski bobbing along at full speed, as she does. She was in the act of pivoting toward the hoop when her knee gave way.
What rotten fortune all around, the best college player in the country – and the coolest – being ousted not by an upset but by injury. So much more upsetting, the weight of potentially losing Watkins long term.
It wouldn’t only upset the balance of a tournament and hinder the top-seeded Trojans’ pursuit of a national championship, but it could disrupt their plans for seasons to come.
Also: A blow to the ongoing ascension of the sport whose transcendent stars – recently Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese and now UConn’s Paige Bueckers, Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo, UCLA’s Lauren Betts and, of course Watkins – are making women’s hoops must-see TV, a ratings juggernaut and cultural touchstone.
Girls and boys show up to Galen Center in Watkins’ jersey, as do women and men. Some of them famous, some of them rocking a bun like Watkins does. And many, many of them wait after games for autographs, and she obliges, as she has been since she was a burgeoning star – and Gatorade National Player of the Year – at Sierra Canyon High School.
All the ads Watkins stars in that are airing during every commercial break during March Madness – for State Farm, Gatorade, Nike – will only remind us who we’re missing. And of that awful, sickening, devastating grimace.
The Trojans and their fans took out their distress on the Bulldogs, respectively bullying them on the court and booing them lustily from the stands – “they showed how ride or die they are,” forward Kiki Iriafen said of the Trojans’ very loud crowd.
Riding the emotional tidal wave, the Trojans earned a second consecutive trip to the Sweet 16, in Spokane, Washington this year, by overwhelming Mississippi State in every way – scoreboards, backboards, sonically, spiritually.
“You cannot tell me that the energy of that crowd and how angry they were with the other team, and how much fired up they were for our team, is so much about what JuJu has given to this arena, to this program, to this city,” Gottlieb said of her 19-year-old star. “And you want to give it all back.”
What else would they do but Fight On? Watkins is, of course, beloved in L.A. because she is L.A.
She’s a Watts native who had the whole country to select from and elected to stay home and work with Gottlieb to turn around a once-proud Trojans program. And she was doing it, filling the stands with new fans who believed she could bring USC a third national title in women’s basketball four decades after the great Cheryl Miller and crew delivered the first two.
Watkins isn’t only flashy and formidable, a fascinating and fantastic player, but she’s tough. She’s fearless, going all out and refusing to come out – like in USC’s 71-25 first-round victory over UNC Greensboro – because of jammed fingers or rolled ankles.
The 6-foot-2 guard didn’t dance and get giddy when the Trojans’ seeding was announced on Selection Sunday, but greeted the news stoically, all business, Mamba-like.
Without her on Monday, the Trojans’ graduate transfer Iriafan – 36 points on 16-for-22 shooting – performed like the player ESPN’s retired newsbreaker Adrian Wojnarowski billed last April as “the potential No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft” when he reported that the former Stanford star was joining Watkins at USC.
Freshman Avery Howell added 18 points, Kayleigh Heckel had 13, L.A. native Rayah Marshall added 12 points and four blocked shots and Watkins’ former high school rival, Etiwanda’s Kennedy Smith collected five steals and scored 10 points for a Trojans team that shot 52.2% from the floor.
“It was just rallying,” said Iriafen, a former Harvard-Westlake standout. “This is what we expect of ourselves. We expect to win.”
The show went on, and the Trojans kept dancing – great basketball in a great basketball environment proving the best salve to the devastating turn in the first quarter. “How proud I am of all of you,” Gottlieb told her team afterward. “We felt like a tidal wave tonight.”
It was an inspiring show of teamwork, but it couldn’t wash away the awful image of Watkins on the court in pain, grimacing.
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