USC’s sophomore star JuJu Watkins sustained a season-ending knee injury in her team’s second-round NCAA Tournament game against Mississippi State, the team announced late on Monday night. She will require surgery.

Multiple sources have confirmed that it was an ACL tear, as reported by ESPN’s Shams Charania. The team has not given any more information.

Watkins was going up for a layup, planted her right leg and fell to the ground in pain with 4:44 left in the first quarter. She was carried off the court by two trainers to be evaluated by USC Keck Medicine staff. 

“She’s getting seen by our great medical team,” USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb told ESPN at the half. “We have a group, and a fan base and a team that’s going to have her back no matter what. JuJu is the toughest kid I know and she’s gonna be good one way or another.”

The No. 1 seed Trojans ended up defeating No. 8 seed Mississippi State 96-59 to advance to the Sweet Sixteen where they will play Kansas State, but losing Watkins weighed heavily on the team. 

“I’m feeling a lot of emotions,” Gottlieb said after the game. “The biggest one is pride. This team rallied. They rallied for her, they rallied for each other. So, I’m not going to forget this night for a long time, for a lot of reasons.”

The basketball world also felt the weight of Watkins’ injury, with people like LSU’s Flau’jae Johnson and former South Carolina and current WNBA player Aliyah Boston sharing their support for the USC guard on social media. 

Watkins is a generational star, who averages 24.6 points, seven rebounds and 3.5 assists per game. She is also a front-runner for Player of the Year. In her sophomore campaign, Watkins led USC to a 26-2 regular-season record and a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. 

Senior forward Kiki Iriafen stepped up in Watkins’ absence, scoring 36 points and grabbing nine rebounds to lead USC to victory. 

“JuJu is a key piece for us and we don’t want to let her down,” Iriafen said. “We don’t want to let our fans down, so it was just about keeping our foot on the gas, trusting everything our coaches have for us  and knowing that we are more than capable of getting a win.”

Avery Howell was also a key contributor for USC. The freshman guard came off the bench to score 18 points on 5 of 10 shooting and 4 of nine from the three-point line. She was one of five Trojans in double-figures. 

“They felt some type of way about JuJu not being in there,” Gottlieb said. “But we rallied together.”

The USC faithful also made their feelings known. When Watkins was injured the crowd at the Galen Center went silent, but once play resumed, they put their energy toward booing the Mississippi State players.

“They’re going to stand behind their home team,” Mississippi State’s Jerkaila Jordan said. “We’re in their home. California is JuJu. They’re going to go hard for JuJu. So I couldn’t do nothing but just respect them because if we were in our home and it was flipped our fans would root for us.”