SPOKANE, Wash. — When Kiki Iriafen arrived at Spokane Area Friday afternoon, fond recollections of the final time she was right here began to come back again to her.
Three years in the past at this very enviornment, Iriafen, then a freshman at Stanford, danced the electrical slide along with her teammates on a confetti-filled courtroom after the Cardinal beat Texas to advance to the Closing 4.
“I started my season in this building,” Iriafen, now a senior at USC, mentioned. “And I kind of want to end in the same way that I started it.”
It’s wishful considering contemplating the Trojans misplaced their greatest participant, JuJu Watkins, earlier this week after she tore her proper anterior cruciate ligament of their second-round win.
However Iriafen and the remainder of the group have maintained the assumption that they will nonetheless accomplish their season-long aim of successful a nationwide championship.
“We are fighters,” Iriafen mentioned. “So we’re just again keeping the main thing, the main thing, keeping the goal.”
The outpouring of assist for Watkins and USC over the previous 5 days has been “unbelievable.”
Coach Lindsay Gottlieb acquired scores of textual content messages from fellow coaches, together with UConn’s Geno Auriemma, UCLA’s Cori Shut and Notre Dame’s Niele Ivey, with phrases of encouragement relating to the group’s scenario.
A number of extra folks, together with Candace Parker and Lindsey Harding, have supplied to attach with Watkins all through her rehabilitation journey.
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Gottlieb gave her group the break day after it punched its ticket to the Candy 16 Monday.
The time allowed gamers to course of their feelings and lock again in.
About 36 hours later, the Trojans reconvened and began making ready for Saturday’s recreation in opposition to Kansas State.
“We’ve had a lot of emotions, but none of them are doubt,” Gottlieb mentioned. “There’s a lot of belief in our team, there’s a lot of love, obviously for JuJu and that’s ever present, we don’t need to say that. But I think that the prevailing feeling is that we can still do something together, and that’s what JuJu wants us to do.”
The pathway ahead is more durable with out Watkins however not unimaginable.
Watkins has led the Trojans this season in scoring, averaging 23.9 factors on 42.6 % taking pictures.
She additionally contributes 6.8 rebounds, 3.4 assists, 2.3 steals and 1.8 blocks per recreation.
It’ll take a team-wide effort to fill as a lot of the void left by the star’s absence.
“Nobody can replace JuJu. She’s one of one. But I think a lot of us can step up in a lot of other areas that can help our team be very successful,” Iriafen mentioned. “I’m not trying to be bigger than who I am. … We all have the same similar sentiment: it’s just doing your role, and kind of doing that little extra thing because we do have a lot to pick up.”
The primary few practices with out Watkins collaborating have taken time to get used to. The sophomore phenom remains to be on all the group’s minds 24/7.
Watkins’ departing message for the group earlier than the Trojans boarded their flight Thursday for Spokane, Washington, was that she was “super proud” of them.
“She feels so confident in what we can do, what we can accomplish,” Iriafen mentioned. “So we still feel her presence even though she might not be with us physically.”
