South Carolina ladies’s basketball junior Ashlyn Watkins has a torn ACL and can miss the rest of the 2024-25 season, the group introduced on Tuesday. Watkins may have surgical procedure within the subsequent few weeks.
“Not typically that we’ve had accidents like this one. Sadly Ashlyn’s out for the remainder of the season,” head coach Daybreak Staley mentioned Tuesday on her Carolina Calls call-in present. “I do know her sisters will rally round her damage and know that she’ll be sorely missed. However I do know Ashlyn would need us to go on and compete and attempt to win one other nationwide championship.”
Watkins performed 14 video games this season and averaged 7.2 factors, 6.4 rebounds and 1.9 blocks per sport. Her damage occurred within the second quarter of the Gamecocks’ 95-68 win over Mississippi State on Sunday. She wanted to be helped to the locker room after touchdown awkwardly on her knee and the group didn’t have an replace on her standing instantly following the sport.
With Watkins out the remainder of the yr, it leaves the Gamecocks skinny within the frontcourt, the place she had joined Chloe Kitts and Sania Feagin within the beginning lineup. Freshman Joyce Edwards, who has come off the bench in all however one sport this yr, will possible slide into Watkins’ beginning spot.
South Carolina ladies’s basketball ahead Ashlyn Watkins sees turbulent season finish
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Watkins’ damage comes months after her August arrest on prices of first diploma assault and battery and kidnapping. In accordance with an arrest warrant obtained by The Athletic, Watkins was accused of assaulting somebody by “forcefully grabbing her face, pulling her by her arms, and pushing her.” She additionally allegedly “grabbed the sufferer’s head and compelled her to stroll down the corridor, thus controlling her motion whereas stopping her from leaving.”
She was launched on $30,000 bond and ordered to remain 1,000 ft from the sufferer’s dwelling, work, college and place of worship.
South Carolina suspended Watkins for its season opener in opposition to Michigan and she or he didn’t journey with the group to the White Home to have a good time its 2024 nationwide championship. The fees have been finally dropped, at which level she returned to the group.
When Watkins did return, she made headlines for throwing down a dunk in a December sport in opposition to TCU. It was her third straight season with a dunk and she or he’s the one participant in program historical past to perform the feat.
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