Heartbreaking injury for JuJu Watkins
The Sporting Tribune's Arash Markazi writes about JuJu Watkins' heartbreaking injury being a blow to not only USC but women's college basketball fans everywhere.
Good morning and welcome to The Morning Column at The Sporting Tribune. It’s the first of our weekday 6@6 series, where you can catch The Morning Column, Arash Markazi’s daily notebook, at 6 a.m. PT, and then watch and listen to The Sporting Tribune Today at 6 p.m. PT on X. The show, which is hosted by Arash Markazi and Grant Mona, will hit on the top stories of the day and will also air on KIRN 670 AM in Southern California, 98.5 The Bet in Las Vegas and The Hawaii Sports Radio Network 95.1 FM and 760 AM in Hawaii.
LOS ANGELES – Six (or seven) thoughts for Tuesday:
1. My brother and I don’t own many of the same pieces of clothing. Out styles are as different as you would expect from two siblings 12 years apart. But we did make one purchase together last year. We both bought JuJu Watkins SLAM cover shirts before this season and started a group chat between us and our wives called the “JuJu Watkins Fan Club.” While our significant others aren’t as obsessed with sports as their husbands tare he four of us have bonded over the USC Trojans women’s basketball team this season.
After USC beat UCLA at Pauley Pavilion to win the Big Ten regular season championship earlier this month, we made plans to go to Tampa for the Women’s Final Four. There was no guarantee that USC would advance to the Final Four for the first time since 1986, of course, but this was a team of destiny we figured lead by Watkins, the consensus National Player of the Yea, the program’s first since Lisa Leslie in 1994.
This is all to say I’ve never felt more of a personal connection to a team than this USC women’s basketball team led by Watkins. When Watkins went down in the first quarter of Monday’s NCAA Tournament game against Mississippi State, my heart dropped. I’m no doctor but I’ve covered enough sports over the past 25 years to know what a torn ACL looks like and the MRI taken late Monday night at Keck Hospital of USC confirmed everyone’s worst fears that Watkins was done for the season.
It's heartbreaking end to the season for a player that was destined for a rematch against Paige Bueckers and UConn in the Elite Eight, Lauren Betts and UCLA in the Final Four and Hannah Hidalgo and Notre Dame (or South Carolina) in the national championship game. It was not only a blow to USC but to women’s college basketball fans everywhere. This wasn’t supposed to be the way her season came to an end. Everything Watkins and USC had done up until this point was for what was coming up over the next two weekends.
It’s nearly impossible to find a silver lining on a night when the game’s best player is lost to season-ending surgery but the rest of the country did get to see why Kiki Iriafen was in the conversation to be the No. 1 overall pick in this year's WNBA Draft when the senior forward transferred to USC from Stanford. She did her best to play a supporting role to Watkins this season but in Watkins' absence, Iriafin played like a No. 1 overall pick prospect in posting 36 points and 9 rebounds in USC’s 96-59 blowout win over Mississippi State to lead the Trojans to the Sweet 16.
If Iriafin plays that in Spokane, maybe, just maybe, we’ll get to see USC in the Final Four after all.
2. I went to the doctor on Monday. I didn’t want to go but my wife told me I had to go after complaining about my ears, nose and throat upon my return to Los Angeles from Tokyo. Covering the Tokyo Series was a dream but the 12-hour flight in the back of a sold-out plane was beyond a nightmare. My tests thankfully came back negative and I feel better today than I did yesterday but the doctor told me to take it easy for while and get some rest.
It's the same advice I’d love to see the Dodgers give Mookie Betts as he continues to battle a mysterious illness that came to light during the team's trip to Japan for the Tokyo Series. The "virus," as Dodgers manager Dave Roberts called it, has prevented Betts from keeping down solid food for two weeks and caused him to lose nearly 20 pounds.
Roberts said Betts did turn a corner on Monday and was able to keep sold food down for the first time and made it through a full workout and felt fine. He said he expects him to play in Tuesday’s exhibition game against the Angels in preparation for Thursday’s home opener against the Detroit Tigers. On one hand that’s great news and on the other hand I can’t help but wonder why? What’s the rush?
Betts’ body has been through so much over the past two weeks and one day after keeping down solid food for the first time in weeks you want to run him out to play in an exhibition game? I want to see Betts back on the field as much as anyone but maybe let him string a few meals and workouts together and get back up to his playing weight before putting him back onto the field. It’s a long season and the Dodgers have the deepest roster in baseball. There’s no reason in rushing Betts back before he’s physically ready to play and risking injury.
3. It was easy to dismiss the Lakers’ four-game losing streak earlier this month when they were playing without LeBron James, Luka Doncic, Rui Hachimura, Jaxon Hayes and Dorian-Finney Smith. In their 131-126 loss at Denver, they rolled out starting lineup of Dalton Knecht, Jordan Goodwin, Alex Len, Jared Vanderbilt and Austin Reaves.
The thinking at the time was that as soon as the Lakers were back at full strength they would go on another eight-game winning streak and reclaim the No. 2 seed in the West going into the postseason.
Um, not exactly.
The Lakers have not only lost three straight games after Monday's loss at the Orlando Magic but they have lost by an average of 24 points. They’re currently the No. 4 seed, which is 2.5 games back of the No. 2 seed but also just 3 games up on being in the play-in tournament. As good as the Lakers looked earlier this month when they held the No. 2 seed before James’ injury in Boston, how they finish this month with road games at Indiana, Chicago and Memphis and a home game against Houston could make or break their season with just seven games to play in April. The last thing this team wants to do is start the postseason by playing in the play-in tournament again.
4. While the Lakers are struggling, the Clippers look like they are finally hitting their stride, winning five straight and eight of nine before a heartbreaking 103-101 loss to the No. 1 seed Oklahoma City Thunder. The Clippers’ core of Kawhi Leonard, James Harden, Norman Powell and Ivica Zubac are finally all healthy and they’re getting contributions from Kris Dunn, Bogdan Bogdanovic, Ben Simmons, Derrick Jones Jr., Nicolas Batum and Amir Coffey. The Clippers are just three games back of the No. 4 seed and just one game back of the No. 6 seed and avoiding the play-in tournament.
One of the most consistent players on the Clippers this season has been Zubac, who has started 69 of the Clippers 71 games so far this season and is averaging a career-high 16.4 points, 12.5 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game. This is the same player the Lakers drafted in the second round in 2016 and looked destined for a long career in purple and gold before he was traded for Mike Muskala, who bounced around between five teams after the failed deal before retiring from basketball last July.
While most would call that the worst Lakers trade in recent memory, I still have to give the nod to the Lakers taking a sledge hammer to their 2020 championship team less than one year hosting the Larry O'Brien Trophy by trading Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Kyle Kuzma, Montrezl Harrell and a first-round pick to the Washington Wizards for Russell Westbrook. A few days later, they let Alex Carusso sign a four-year, $37 million deal with the Chicago Bulls when he told the Lakers he would re-sign to stay in Los Angeles for less.
5. Speaking of that 2020 championship Lakers team, it was great to see Dwight Howard get inducted into the Orlando Magic Hall of Fame before the Lakers played the Magic on Monday. It was only fitting given that Howard led the Magic to the 2009 NBA Finals against the Lakers, was traded to the Lakers by the Magic and eventually won his only championship with the Lakers in Orlando.
6.I liked the Sparks’ trade for Kelsey Plum when it was made mainly because I felt they needed a proven star after missing out on the No. 1 overall pick for the second year in a row. I also didn’t feel there was a No. 2 player on the board this year as good as Cameron Brink was last year. So, make the trade for Plum and get a sold player with the ninth pick in the first round and get lucky with someone who could make an impact with the 21st overall pick. We’ll see what happens but I have the Sparks taking UConn guard Azzi Fudd with the ninth pick and Brink’s 3x3 Team USA teammate and TCU standout guard Hayley Van Lith with the 21st pick.
7. Bonus Note of the Day: Thanks to KCBS 2 and KCAL 9 for having me on to talk about Match Madness this week.
The Sporting Tribune’s @ArashMarkazi will be on KCAL and KCBS talking about March Madness this week. pic.twitter.com/phGcbpPVFh
— The Sporting Tribune (@SportingTrib) March 25, 2025