Women’s March Madness: After JuJu Watkins’ injury, Kiki Iriafen and Trojans power USC to Sweet 16

LOS ANGELES — You could hear a pin drop inside the Galen Center the moment USC superstar JuJu Watkins went down with a season-ending torn ACL injury less than five minutes into No. 1 seed USC’s eventual 96-59 win over No. 9 seed Mississippi State Monday in the second round of the 2025 Women’s NCAA Tournament. Watkins stayed on the floor for several minutes as her injury — and the reality of it — sent shockwaves throughout the arena.

The lasting image of one of the faces of women’s college basketball suffering that injury could have been a death knell on USC’s dream season. With Watkins out, her co-star Kiki Iriafen stepped up and delivered her best game in a USC uniform when her team needed it the most.

Iriafen set a USC program record for points in an NCAA Tournament game (36) and finished just five points off her career-high of 41 set when she played at Stanford. Iriafen’s previous season-high came against Saint Louis in her seventh game in a USC uniform.

“It’s hard when you have such a key player not with you,” Iriafen said. “At the end of the day, we have to win the game. Respectfully, no one cares on Mississippi State that we lost [JuJu]. I think for us, it was making sure we got the job done. We wanted our season to be extended. Really rallying and doing whatever we can to get out of Galen.”

It wasn’t just Iriafen who stepped. USC center Rayah Marshall nearly finished with a double-double (12 points, nine rebounds). She also delivered a highlight that transformed the arena’s atmosphere from somber sadness to pure joy in the final moments of the first half.

Marshall, who had just made 10 3-pointers in her college career coming into the night, banked in a 3-pointer at the end of the second quarter buzzer that got the crowd on their feet. Immediately after the shot counted, some of Marshall’s teammates — including Iriafen — hugged her and celebrated around her. 

The sounds of The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” could be heard echoing throughout the arena as USC ran into the tunnel after that shot — a stark contrast to the mood everyone in the arena felt less than an hour before. When Marshall and Iriafen exited the game for good in the fourth quarter, fans cheered their name. The audible sounds of “Kiki, Kiki, Kiki!” were deafening as she checked out with just over six minutes remaining in regulation.

“What a performance by this group,” USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb said. “When you throw a bunch of talented people on a team, it doesn’t become a team until you work through some things. I always thought throughout the year that if we had something we had to work on it would be when things didn’t go right right away, we sometimes stressed out.”

The scene in Los Angeles after Watkins sustained her devastating injury was a microcosm of a team, fanbase and city rallying around a homegrown star that has given so much already to a program yearning for a winner to cheer for after missing the NCAA Tournament seven consecutive seasons before Gottlieb’s arrival.

If the 35 minutes USC played without Watkins on the court proved anything to college basketball fans, it’s that USC will rally around one of the sport’s transformational stars in the sport, whether she’s playing or supporting from the bench.

“To see this place rally behind her, I hope at some point she can see the significance that she has here,” Gottlieb said. “It goes far beyond her talent and abilities. That’s what’s really generational about it, the way she’s galvanized everyone. The way her team had her back, it really is a team.”