How JuJu Watkins became the face of women’s college basketball at USC — her Watts civil-rights roots, her Player of the Year season, and the ACL injury testing her comeback.
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The face of a sport, sidelined at her peak
By the spring of 2025, JuJu Watkins wasn’t just a great college basketball player — she was arguably the biggest draw in the women’s game. The USC guard had won national Player of the Year as a sophomore, carried the Trojans to a No. 1 seed, and become the kind of star whose name sold out arenas. Then, a few minutes into a second-round NCAA tournament game, she drove to the basket, crumpled to the floor untouched, and tore her right ACL.
That injury, and what’s come since, is now the central thread of her story. Watkins missed the entire 2025-26 season recovering, and has been unusually candid that the hardest part hasn’t been physical. “Getting over that mental curve has been the biggest thing,” she said. How a 20-year-old generational talent handles losing a year at the height of her powers — and whether she returns the same player — is the question hanging over one of the most compelling figures in American sports.
Quick facts
| Full name | JuJu Watkins |
| Born | July 15, 2005, Los Angeles, California |
| Age | 20 |
| Height | 6’2″ |
| Position | Guard |
| Team | USC Trojans |
| Parents | Robert Neal-Watkins and Sari Watkins (both former college athletes) |
| High schools | Windward School, then Sierra Canyon |
| Recruiting | No. 1 / No. 2 recruit in the 2023 class; Gatorade National Player of the Year |
| 2024-25 honor | Consensus / AP National Player of the Year |
| Injury | Torn right ACL (March 2025); out for 2025-26 |
| Expected return | Start of the 2026-27 season |
Rooted in Watts and a legacy of activism
Watkins was born July 15, 2005, in Los Angeles and grew up in Watts, one of the city’s most historically significant Black communities — and her family’s connection to that place runs deep. Her great-grandfather, Theodore “Ted” Watkins Sr., was a prominent civil rights activist who founded the Watts Labor Community Action Committee (WLCAC) in the aftermath of the 1965 Watts riots, providing jobs and social services to the neighborhood. There’s a park named for him, Ted Watkins Memorial Park, and it’s the very playground where JuJu trained as a child.
That heritage isn’t background decoration; it shapes how she’s described and how she carries herself. The family’s tradition of community service passed down through generations, and Watkins has volunteered with WLCAC food banks, toy drives and youth basketball camps, carrying forward the legacy her great-grandfather built. The values her parents emphasized — discipline, repetition, purpose — were grounded in that community-first ethos.
Her parents were both college athletes: her father, Robert Neal-Watkins, played college football, and her mother, Sari, competed in track and field. Robert became her first coach, drilling fundamentals with her in the backyard and at the Watts gym named for the family. “When we started in the backyard, it was always about the foundation and the repetition,” he said. “Whatever we worked on in the backyard she would implement immediately in the game, and she wasn’t afraid of taking risks.”
The kid who chose basketball over tennis
One of the more revealing details of Watkins’ origin is that basketball wasn’t the plan. Her parents, inspired by the Williams sisters, initially wanted her to play tennis. Watkins had other ideas, and the way she made her case says a lot about her drive. “I had to go to my mom and be like, ‘I want to do this,'” she told ESPN. Her parents’ response set the tone for everything after: they’d support it, but only if she committed fully. “They really forced me to really want to be serious about something because their whole thing is, ‘Don’t do nothing if you’re not going to be fully in it.'”
It wasn’t immediately smooth. Watkins reportedly barely played during her first year of travel ball, lacking foundational skills — a slow start that could have ended things before they began. Instead, she begged her parents to coach her up, and they obliged. The combination of that early struggle and the demand for total commitment forged the relentless competitor she became.
By high school she was a phenom. She attended Windward School in Los Angeles, where she was named Sports Illustrated’s SportsKid of the Year in 2020, then transferred to the basketball powerhouse Sierra Canyon — a move that prompted her family to relocate from Watts to northern Los Angeles. She finished as the consensus No. 1 recruit and Gatorade National Player of the Year, choosing to stay home and play for USC rather than join one of the sport’s traditional dynasties.
A historic two seasons at USC
Watkins’ decision to commit to USC reshaped the program and, to some extent, the sport. Her arrival turned the Trojans into a national force almost overnight, and her individual production was staggering for someone so young.
As a freshman in 2023-24 she was an immediate sensation, earning All-America honors. But it was her sophomore year that confirmed her as the best player in the country. In 2024-25 she averaged 23.9 points and 6.8 rebounds, anchoring a USC team that went 31-4, finished atop the Big Ten, and earned a No. 1 NCAA tournament seed. The Trojans ranked 10th nationally in scoring and third in defensive rating — a two-way dominance built around Watkins, who was named the consensus and AP National Player of the Year and won the John R. Wooden Award. At just 19, she was the centerpiece of a genuine national title contender.
The injury that stopped everything
Then came March 24, 2025. Just minutes into USC’s second-round NCAA tournament game against Mississippi State, Watkins drove to the basket and fell to the floor on a non-contact play, clutching her right knee. She struggled to put any weight on it and had to be carried off. An MRI that evening confirmed the worst: a torn ACL.
The injury ended USC’s Final Four hopes and launched Watkins into a long, grinding rehabilitation. She initially held out hope of returning before the end of the following season, but eventually accepted the medical reality. In a statement to fans, she announced she’d sit out the entire 2025-26 season: “These last few months have been filled with a lot of healing, rest, and reflection. Recovering from this injury hasn’t been easy… I will sit out this season and fully focus on continuing to recover so I can come back to the game I love.”
What’s striking is how openly she’s discussed the psychological toll. Even while being invited to USA Basketball’s senior training camp and beginning light shooting and ball-handling work, she identified the mental battle as the steepest part. “I think this journey has definitely taught me to have a lot of patience,” she told ESPN. “So many ups and downs within the process, but just staying true to myself and staying true to process.”
Her shadow over a season she didn’t play
A telling measure of Watkins’ importance is how much she shaped USC even while sidelined. The Trojans reloaded around freshman phenom Jazzy Davidson — who credited Watkins’ mentorship as she put together one of the best freshman seasons in recent memory — and remained competitive, a testament to both the program Watkins helped build and her influence from the bench. A full year after the injury, observers noted that the moment still defined USC’s trajectory, and that Watkins’ presence continued to shape everything the program had become.
She’s expected to return for the start of the 2026-27 season, more than a full year removed from the injury, and remains a projected future top WNBA draft pick whenever she turns professional.
Conclusion
JuJu Watkins occupies a rare position: a young athlete who had already reached the summit of her sport before a single freak injury interrupted everything. The question now isn’t whether she’s great — two All-America seasons and a national Player of the Year award settle that. It’s whether she returns as the same fearless, risk-taking player her father described, or whether a year away and a surgically repaired knee change her game.
The early signs, and her own words, suggest someone built to handle it. The Watts upbringing, the demand for total commitment, the slow start she fought through as a kid — all of it points to a competitor who has navigated adversity before, just never this public or this consequential. If she comes back at full strength, the lost season may read as a footnote in a career headed for the WNBA and beyond. For now, women’s basketball is waiting on its biggest star to reclaim the spotlight that an instant on the Galen Center floor took away.
