USC head coach Lindsay Gottlieb said Friday that the Mississippi State player involved in the play that injured JuJu Watkins did not intend to hurt the Trojans star.
Gottlieb addressed the incident while speaking with media from the Spokane 4 region ahead of Saturday’s Sweet 16 game against Kansas State. USC, a No. 1 seed, will play that game and any subsequent NCAA tournament games without Watkins, who suffered a torn ACL in Monday’s second-round win over Mississippi State.
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Watkins, an All-American and player of the year candidate, will be sidelined for several months with the injury that’s caused an uproar among fans of Watkins and USC, some of whom have apparently targeted MSU forward Chandler Prater with online criticism. Prater made contact with Watkins prior to the fall that led to her torn ACL.
Gottlieb scoffed at the idea that Prater intended to injure Watkins on the play.
Here’s the play in which Watkins was injured. Watkins’ right knee buckled as she was running on a fast break and she fell to the floor in immediate pain. Watkins was surrounded by two MSU players when she sustained the injury.
Overhead replay shows contact between Prater and Watkins just before the injury, but nothing that suggests malice or intent. It was normal basketball contact, and Prater was whistled for a common foul.
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The game was played at USC’s Galen Center. The Galen Center crowd booed when the replay was shown on the video board. The crowd continued to boo throughout the game whenever Prater touched the ball. USC went on to a 96-59 win to advance to the Sweet 16.
Then, there was tension in the postgame handshake line between players.
A team spokesperson told reporters after the game that Prater, who was not available for interviews, was “not doing well.”
Per Jackson, Mississippi’s The Clarion Ledger, Prater has been the target of harassment on social media since Monday’s game, with some Instagram comments call her “dirty” and telling her to quit playing basketball.
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Prater disabled comments on some of her recent posts, according to the report, but users have gone into her Instagram archives to leave her messages about the Watkins injury.
“Learn how to play the sport without fouling and injuring players,” one user wrote on a post from February, according to the Clarion-Ledger.
Gottlieb’s comments from Friday echo those previously made by Mississippi State and head coach Sam Purcell.
“We’re a program of class,” Purcell said after Monday’s game. “And my prayers and thoughts as the leader of this program immediately in that opening statement are with JuJu.
“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 situation happen.”
Mississippi State issued an official statement on Tuesday to the Clarion-Ledger declaring that “there is no excuse for personal attacks or harassment online toward the young women in our program.”
