So much had been heaped on Juju Watkins from the beginning – from the moment she entered the USC campus, she was the one who brought this system back to the mountain summit. This season she was the player who would wear the Star Power in the ladies's college basketball after Caitlin Clark.
It was much weight on everyone's shoulders, but she handled it well. She thrown under this responsibility and flourished within the highlight.
But last weekend the most important star in women's college basketball was dropped at the square with an ACL tear at the top of the season. Her absence has made USC fans fatty and the ladies -college basketball world made restless.
Some friendly words for Juju Watkins
pic.twitter.com/8symkuoucu
– ESPNW (@Spnw) March 25, 2025
Salt within the wound? Advertising spots with Watkins will proceed to play through the NCAA tournament. It is currently the most important individual star in Women's College Hoops and draws a red carpet-like turnout from celebrities at her games within the Galen Center. This reception would have been drilled with a final 4 trip or a national championship as an undeniable Hollywood act.
While prayers on Los Angeles rained for Watkins' recovery, questions bubbled: What now? Now?
It's a good query. And it repeats the refrain women's basketball, which was repeatedly asked after last season when Clark drove as much as the WNBA. Would your legions of fans and thousands and thousands of spectators set records to play your game for Iowa for the 2024-25 college season?
Nobody expected the tournament of the record viewers this season last season, but progress cannot only be measured in year-on-year profit. And while no person expected the figures to achieve Clark Mania's fever before one season, the trend continues in a single direction: upwards.
The first two rounds of the tournament showed no ash fish, no essential disorders, no Clark. They were light within the drama, which some imagine that it’s obligatory to draw the audience. And yet the numbers lie non-evaluations from the primary two rounds within the history of the tournament course and are 43 percent higher than in 2023, which is the third best yr in tournament history today.
As generational, Clark was, the sport still showed dynamics in its entourage. Since Watkins is absent in regards to the remainder of this tournament and is so great that that is rejected, there isn’t a reason to assume that sport will not be strong enough to proceed.
Because this query will not be recent.
Many forget that Paige Bueckers did the identical before Clark fascinated the country. As a brand new student, she won the national players of the yr in 2021 and have become an early favorite of the name, image and similarity. Then she tore her ACL and missed a complete season and asked questions on how the game would last without his recent child prodigy, which filled the arenas.
Clark and Angel Reese appeared within the absence of Buecker's and overcrowded this emptiness to lift the sport much more interest and produce sport to higher horizons, which culminated in one of the epic showdowns in tournament history. Last season, the unbeaten campaign by South Carolina was led by coach Dawn Staley, who’s one of the influential characters in sport. The Gamecocks were tested by Clarks shimmering displays and drew the evaluations of the audience, which themselves put high standards within the shade in 2023s.
When Bueckers was outside, Clark and Reese replied. Bueckers had done the identical after Oregons Sabrina Ionescu had gone to the WNBA. And the fans were similarly skeptical of a scarcity of star power when Maya Moore was accomplished at Uconn.
The women's play has repeatedly proven – especially within the last seasons – that it’s going to produce. Luminaires will occur and basketball fans will captivate.
Perhaps the reply will not be as obvious as per week ago when the most effective player within the nation led a resident program with a national supporter and immediate recognition on a must-sea trip.
Similar to the reactions that Clark, Moore and others inspired in front of them, the coaches were at the identical time annoyed and tried to stop them, but gratefully for what they did for the sport. Sometimes it is less complicated to acknowledge the expansion from the within.
If there may be a trainer who can testify the worth of players like Watkins and their influence on sport, it’s Uconn's geno Auriemma. He saw more phenomenon nearby than everyone else, many who were so popular that they might be referred to their first names (or initials): Sue, Dee, Maya, Stewie.
When the ESPN program on Monday from Uconn's victory after the victory within the second round after Bus dryers had scored 34 points, Auriemma set a spot in Storrs in Storrs. He was asked to reply quickly in order that the show could hand over the sport of the USC-MisSsissippi State on the west coast.
“Oh, man, come from me now, let us come to her. I want to see her play,” said Auriemma with a smile. “Juju comes here. Give me some Juju!
Geno counts down the show after which throw it into Juju and say that you just “take over” >>>> https://t.co/ermnjnrp5d pic.twitter.com/a2sto3eh2a
– Tyler Deluca (@Tylerdeluca) March 25, 2025
Trainer respect great players; Play respect. (If only the latter had some grace for knees.)
So what next? Who now?
The next two weeks will determine. But if the past tells us something, the ladies's tournament will deliver. The elite talent continues to be involved. Each seed No. 1 (UCLA, South Carolina, USC and Texas), 2 Seed (Uconn, NC State, Duke and TCU) and three seeds (Notre Dame, LSU, North Carolina and Oklahoma) stop. The limelight will remain back to Bueckers, and as previous tournaments taught us, occasional viewers will even be recent fans of the most effective players in the sport. Notre Dame's Hannah Hidalgo, Lsus Flau'jae Johnson and Lauren Betts from Ucla were exemplary all season, and recent young players are able to surprise us.
The show continues in Spokane and Birmingham. Networks are cut. New stars are made and crowned, and familiar stars shoulder a heavier load.
A USC without Watkins will not be the identical as before, still a tournament without Watkins. But the most effective proof of Watkins' size and star force is that even in its absence, the game that it builds will proceed to grow.
image credit : www.nytimes.com