Celebrity guard JuJu Watkins’ season-ending knee harm looms massive over Saturday’s Spokane Area 4 Candy 16 matchup between No. 1 seed Southern California and No. 5 seed Kansas State.
USC (30-3) rallied after Watkins sustained the harm in Monday’s second-round 96-59 blowout of Mississippi State, led by way of Kiki Iriafen’s 36 issues and 9 rebounds.
The Trojans will want extra massive performances like that to fill the void left by way of All-American sophomore Watkins (23.9 issues, 6.8 rebounds, 3.4 assists consistent with recreation).
“We all know nobody is changing JuJu,” USC trainer Lindsay Gottlieb mentioned. “She’s one in every of one. However I believe they keep in mind that, among everyone else, they’ve performed important roles, they’ve performed vital roles. We simply wish to be the most efficient variations of ourselves, and we wish to do this in combination to be able to have good fortune.”
Iriafen comes into Saturday’s matchup averaging 18.6 issues and a team-high 8.5 rebounds consistent with recreation. She is the one Trojan as opposed to Watkins to moderate in double-figure issues for the season. Newcomers Kennedy Smith and Avery Howell give a contribution 9.2 and seven.1 issues consistent with recreation.
Kansas State (28-7) has 5 gamers averaging 9.5 or extra issues consistent with recreation, together with 2022 All-American heart Ayoka Lee.
The fifth-year senior returned from a month-long absence because of a foot harm to rejoin the Wildcats’ lineup for the NCAA Match. She produced a 17-point, 10-rebound double-double within the 85-41 rout of Fairfield within the first around, and 16 issues with 9 rebounds in an 80-79 time beyond regulation win over Kentucky.
“We’re tremendous excited to have her again. We are merely a greater staff along with her at the courtroom and again at one hundred pc,” Kansas State guard Serena Sundell mentioned. “All of us are assured we will be able to beat anyone within the nation, however we additionally more or less have that underdog vibe round our staff the place now not a large number of persons are anticipating.”
Sundell is averaging 13.9 issues consistent with recreation, whilst Temira Poindexter — who scored 24 issues within the defeat of Kentucky — is hanging up 12.7 issues consistent with recreation.
No. 2 UConn vs. No. 3 Oklahoma
All-American guard Paige Bueckers headlines moment seed UConn going into its Candy 16 matchup on Saturday with No. 3 seed Oklahoma, however some other Huskies perimeter participant might be key to a countrywide championship run.
Guard Azzi Fudd scored 27 and 17 issues in UConn’s first two NCAA Match wins over Arkansas State and South Dakota State.
“Paige has been on this scenario so much, Azzi has now not, so I am positive she’s frightened to play on this surroundings in a recreation of this magnitude,” UConn trainer Geno Auriemma mentioned.
“The one factor I fear about … when it is their first actual, actual, actual publicity to this once they have not performed in a very long time is they are trying so exhausting. They put such a lot into it. So if we will be able to stay it more or less like the opposite video games that we have now performed not too long ago, I’d suppose she will play nice.”
Fudd neglected lots of the earlier two seasons with accidents, however she has returned to counterpoint Bueckers’ team-leading 19.2 issues consistent with recreation with 13.4 of her personal.
Fudd will have to have a key position for UConn (33-3) towards an Oklahoma staff with a variety of scoring skill.
The Sooners (27-7) moderate 85.4 issues consistent with recreation, fifth-most within the country forward of the Candy 16. Oklahoma cruised previous Florida Gulf Coast (81-58) and Iowa (96-62) within the event’s opening weekend at the back of a couple of double-doubles from ahead Raegan Beers.
Beers is one in every of 4 Oklahoma scorers averaging in double figures heading into Saturday’s contest, as her 17.5 issues and 9.3 rebounds consistent with recreation lead the Sooners.
Leaning on guns as opposed to Beers, on the other hand, has been important to Oklahoma’s run, mentioned Sooners trainer Jennie Baranczyk.
“We will be able to’t be a one-hit marvel,” she mentioned. “We will be able to’t have the place we are simply going to feed Raegan each and every ownership of each and every recreation that we lose the remainder of our motion. And we have now needed to develop thru that and we have now had to be told so much.”
Guard Payton Verhulst, averaging 14.9 issues consistent with recreation, has dished 26 assists during the last 5 video games whilst scoring no less than 13 issues in 4. Oklahoma will attempt to leverage her versatility to stay UConn off-balance defensively.
–Box Stage Media
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