(ThyBlackMan.com) During the women’s NCAA Basketball Tournament, the loss of USC star guard JuJu Watkins to a torn ACL in the second round of the 2025 Women’s NCAA Tournament took arguably the biggest name in women’s college basketball from women’s March Madness. The devastating knee injury was difficult all around for Watkins, her teammates, and basketball fans as women’s college basketball has garnered a good amount of interest in the TV ratings following the season after Iowa’s Caitlin Clark and her LSU “rival”, Angel Reese, left for the WNBA. The serious injury also shows why Name, Image, and Likeness for today’s college athlete is so important for a star of JuJu Watkins’s caliber.
For college basketball fans watching games on TV over the course of the 2024-25 season, you may have come across seeing JuJu Watkins making appearances on State Farm or Nike commercials. Her trademark hair bun and laid-back facial expressions make her one of the most recognizable figures in college hoops including UConn’s Paige Bueckers and Duke’s Cooper Flagg, who has garnered the most attention in the men’s game for being a freshman phenom for several reasons. Watkins has revived the USC program that had a proud tradition of incredible women’s basketball players including former WNBA greats Lisa Leslie, Cynthia Cooper, and Tina Thompson. As a program, USC women’s basketball is also the alma mater of the woman many historians consider the greatest women’s basketball player of all time at any level, Cheryl Miller. It says something that Miller has been on the sidelines cheering on this recent version of the USC Trojans while high fiving Watkins as she sets scoring records.
USC’s JuJu Watkins has a Name, Image, and Likeness, or NIL valuation of about $765,000 and she ranks ninth in the On3 Women’s NIL 100. This is impressive for someone who is not even old enough to legally drink alcohol. Being a former top recruit from California attending USC helps, but ultimately it is her game and talent that makes the biggest difference in Watkins’s ability to earn money based on NIL. Of course, just a decade ago this would have never been possible under NCAA rules but the new era of NIL and transfer portal has opened things up for today’s athlete to have opportunities that their predecessors never had.
A torn ACL is a very tough injury to overcome and can potentially change the trajectory of an athlete’s career as it is a challenging rehab process. It is not ideal for it to happen for any athlete and especially women’s college basketball players who have to stay in college much longer than their male counterparts do before attempting to play in the professional ranks. There is a little bit of solace that Watkins can look at UConn’s Bueckers who also suffered a torn ACL as a former All-American guard and returned later seasons to lead her team to success while playing at a high level again. It also helps that Watkins was able to make some money off her Name, Image, and Likeness prior to her injury. It is not a salary but it is something that assists financially that the average college student usually doesn’t have.
Staff Writer; Mark Hines
