USC's 96-59 win over Mississippi State in the second round of the women's NCAA tournament Monday night came at a devastating cost: Trojans star guard JuJu Watkins tore her ACL in the first quarter of the game and has been ruled out for the rest of the season.
Watkins was driving toward the basket surrounded by two Bulldogs players when she went down due to what seemed to be a non-contact injury to her right knee.
After Watkins was carried off the court, play resumed and the Bulldogs startlingly received boos from the crowd throughout the rest of the contest. At the end of the game, there was also a heated moment in the handshake line between USC and Mississippi State players. Mississippi State guard Chandler Prater, one of the players who was defending Watkins on the play, wasn't made available for postgame interviews.
In the wake of Watkins's season-ending injury, Mississippi State coach Sam Purcell sent the Trojans star his well wishes but also defended his team from backlash stemming from the incident.
Purcell spoke to USA Today following his team's loss and condemned harmful comments or threats toward his players over what by all accounts appeared to be an unfortunate play.
"We’re a program of class and my prayers and thoughts are with JuJu," Purcell said. "We don’t play to hurt, we play to compete. There was no harm. I pray as a society we understand that we don’t take this further than it needs to.
"And I hope us as a society, because social media can be ugly, that you understand the other lady on my team that was involved is a woman of class. She comes from a family, too, of loving parents. And I'm sure she is remorseful and obviously didn't want to have that happen."
No. 1 seed USC will now look to make it to the NCAA title game without their star guard, with their next game scheduled against No. 5 seed Kansas State in the Sweet 16 on Saturday.
More College Basketball on Sports Illustrated
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Mississippi State Coach Defends His Team After JuJu Watkins's Devastating Injury.
