JuJu Watkins reminds us that nothing is guaranteed — Curt Miller talks Dallas Wings

Basketball Wednesday

Presented by The BIG EAST Conference

The loss of JuJu Watkins has upended more than just her own career path. The USC season, the 2025 NCAA Tournament, the very trajectory of the sport has changed overnight. And it is a depressing reminder that just because we’ve seen so much go right in women’s basketball lately, we cannot assume, or plan, as if the best-case scenario is the one we will always be living in. (We’ve had no shortage of reminders of that in the non-basketball world, of course.)

This is, at heart, a human story. The idea that Watkins now needs to spend the next year in grueling rehab to return to the basketball court, a diversion from her life at age 19 already filled with many more responsibilities than anyone should have to grapple with at this point in time, is heartbreaking.

Concurrent to it, though, is a shift in a USC program that has built a championship contender around Watkins on the roster. There is a load of other talent there — no one wins a title on the back of a single player, not even someone as preternaturally talented as Watkins — but Lindsay Gottlieb created a team to maximize what Watkins does. Now, for the next year, and starting this very weekend, she needs to alter the way the entire rotation operates.

The questions over how NCAA women’s basketball ratings would look in the post-Caitlin Clark era still remain unanswered, too, and now the game most people believed would offer the best chance to match or exceed some of the highest peaks Clark reached for audience in 2024 will not happen. Rounds 1 and 2 were short of last season, but well ahead of any other. Comparing prior to 2021 is a fool’s errand for any number of reasons — I remain amused that ESPN has created the lemonade talking point of “we’ve broadcast every women’s NCAA Tournament game for five straight years” from the lemons of “it took us until 2021 to broadcast every single women’s NCAA Tournament game we had the rights to” — but locking in many of the Clark-era gains here is a win. A Watkins-Bueckers matchup would have offered, I believe, a similar win ratings-wise to the Elite Eight matchup between Iowa and LSU last season. That is now moot.

Timelines don’t always line up. Watkins, if she is back in a year, would be playing in the 2026 NCAA Tournament. But the rules of collegiate eligibility probably dictate that’s a silly thing to do, pushing her timeline to 2026-27. Does she still return to USC at that point? Are the eligibility rules for the WNBA Draft different by then, in a new collective bargaining agreement?

However it goes, the path is fundamentally different from the one Caitlin Clark enjoyed. A steady increase in popularity, no injuries, no detours, seemingly every matchup leading seamlessly to the next one, amid both the NCAA and WNBA media rights negotiations — that is fate providing women’s basketball with a perfect storm. And the results at the NCAA Tournament ratings level serve as a reminder that waves crest and recede, but the low tide is vastly higher because of this wave.

It won’t be the last one. Paige Bueckers, too, drew north of 1 million viewers for her first round game against Arkansas State, and it wasn’t due to the high drama or the final score. JuJu Watkins will return, and many fans forged during this era will watch, along with some new ones, too. Hopefully it happens without another hiccup along the way. But life seldom unfolds in straight lines.

The future should be bright. It is deeply unfair that Watkins did everything right and has to suffer this pain and absence, that all of us miss the sheer delight of watching her on the court, and appreciate the ways in which she has elevated the women’s game, just beyond childhood of her own.

But let this, too, serve as a reminder to all of us to appreciate the greatness when we witness it — in veterans and rookies alike — and understand we are capturing a brief moment of it, but that the next one is anything but guaranteed.

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This week in women’s basketball

My reward for finishing my work today is I get to read Alexa Philippou on Paige Bueckers.

I know they didn’t advance, but please read and enjoy the stories on mid-majors we had at The Next. Love every bit of what Rob Knox on HBCUs, Jenn Hatfield on the Ivy, Natalie Heavren on the Atlantic 10 and Angie Holmes on the MVC did to document these journeys all season.

Listen to Sabreena Merchant talk about the relaunched women’s hoops podcast at The Athletic. Just listen to Sabreena Merchant, period!

Cassandra Negley on Kim Caldwell? Yes please.

Instead of linking to PJ Brown here, as I do so often, I’ll say this: if you have a women’s basketball FT writing opening, call her immediately.

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Five at The IX: Curt Miller and the Dallas Wings

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