LOS ANGELES — After Mississippi State’s season ended against Southern California on Monday night, the Bulldogs were trying to protect one of their players.
Early in the second round contest of the women’s NCAA Tournament, USC star JuJu Watkins went down with a knee injury that turned out to be season-ending. There were Mississippi State players surrounding Watkins when she went down and let out a painful scream, but it looked like a non-contact injury.
But that’s not how everyone saw it. After a hush fell over the Galen Center as Watkins was tended to, play resumed and the Bulldogs were met with heavy boos from the crowd anytime they touched the ball, particularly toward guard Chandler Prater.
When Mississippi State’s locker room opened for postgame interviews, Prater was not available. A team representative told USA TODAY Sports she was ‘not doing well.’
‘It’s obviously an unfortunate position to be in because it was totally unintentional, and it was just a basketball play,’ junior guard Denim DeShields told USA TODAY Sports. ‘But when things happen to a star, I guess they can be seen worse than they actually are. She’ll be fine. We’ve just got to move past it and prayers to JuJu.’
However, the negative comments have already been posted on social media. Mississippi State head coach Sam Purcell offered prayers and an apology in his opening statement, but said he wasn’t aware of any backlash any of his players were receiving online when asked by a USA TODAY Sports reporter. He condemned any harmful comments or threats and reiterated his players wouldn’t try to injure a player.
‘We’re a program of class,’ Purcell said. ‘We don’t play to hurt; we play to compete. That’s just an unfortunate situation. There was no harm. 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.
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‘I pray as a society that we understand it’s a thoughtful apology that we don’t take this further than it needs to. On behalf of the Bulldogs, again, we’re praying for her recovery for this next game because she’s the ultimate competitor. We want to see her back out on that court.’
The coach of Mississippi State’s biggest rival backed up the Bulldogs as well. Mississippi’s Yolett McPhee-McCuin said on social media no player tried to hurt Watkins.
‘If you’re a fan of basketball it hurt to see. I couldn’t even watch after that. But anyone that says Miss State was dirty please stop that narrative. Please and let’s pray for Ju’s recovery and healing,’ McPhee-McCuin said.
While there were some words exchanged in the postgame handshake line, there was no bad blood between the Bulldogs and Trojans by the end of the night. After his postgame press conference, Purcell offered his condolences directly to USC head coach Lindsay Gottlieb and associate head coach Beth Burns. The Trojan coaches understood there was no ill intent.
Mississippi State senior Jerkaila Jordan said she was looking forward to playing against Watkins because ‘she’s one of the best’ and ‘seeing her go down was really tough.’ She offered her prayers and hopes Watkins can come back on the court as quickly as possible.
‘She’s changed the game in so many ways at such a young age,’ Jordan said. ‘You hate to see a player go down, especially someone just as great as JuJu.’
This story was updated with editing changes.
