A dark cloud now looms over what could be a star-laden Women’s Sweet 16.

JuJu Watkins was helped to the locker room after suffering an apparent knee injury in the first quarter of USC’s win over Mississippi State in the second round of the women’s NCAA tournament Monday night. The Wooden Award favorite did not return. USC said at halftime that she was being evaluated by medical staff, and the ESPN broadcast reported that Watkins had to be taken to a local hospital for imaging.

The exact details of Watkins’s injury and her status for the Trojans’ Sweet 16 game against Kansas State on Saturday are still unclear. If Watkins is ruled out, the Trojans will rely on star forward Kiki Iriafen, who is projected to be a top-five pick in the 2025 WNBA draft.

USC head coach Lindsay Gottlieb said after the game that no determination had been made yet. “I don’t have an update on JuJu,” she said. “She’s getting incredible medical care.”

Watkins had a dominant sophomore year in Los Angeles, averaging 24.6 points, seven rebounds, 3.5 assists, 2.3 steals and 1.8 blocks.

Even without Watkins, the No. 1 seed Trojans cruised to a 37-point blowout of Mississippi State. Before the injury, it appeared Watkins was set to join a long list of stars still alive in the tournament—a trend unseen in the men’s tournament where Cooper Flagg’s name recognition stands above the field. Aside from Watkins, the remaining women’s stars include UConn’s Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd, LSU’s Flau’jae Johnson, UCLA’s Lauren Betts, and South Carolina’s Chloe Kitts. 

The biggest names who have been eliminated are Kentucky’s Georgia Amoore, a potential first-round pick in the 2025 WNBA draft, and Iowa State’s Audi Crooks. 

USC is on a collision course to face UConn in the Elite Eight in what would be a dream match-up for rights holder ESPN after last year’s Caitlin Clark-led tournament. UConn and USC met in December and drew 2.2 million viewers on Fox, the most-watched regular-season game this year; now they’re each a win away from a rematch in the regional final.

There are still several high-profile matchups set in the Sweet 16: A North Carolina vs. Duke rivalry game, a battle between two legendary women’s basketball programs in Texas and Tennessee, and a showdown between the Hailey Van Lith–led TCU and Notre Dame headlined by Hannah Hidalgo and Olivia Miles. The latter two contests are scheduled for Saturday on ABC.

Leading a team to the Sweet 16 in March Madness is a notable achievement for any college basketball coach—and it pays well, too.

With only Power 4 programs advancing out of the second round of the men’s NCAA tournament, some of the country’s highest-paid coaches are cashing in further with contract bonuses after reaching the Sweet 16.

Here are the big bonuses for coaches with publicly available contracts: 

• $200,000: Tennessee’s Rick Barnes
• $100,000: Houston’s Kelvin Sampson
• $75,000: Maryland’s Kevin Willard, Michigan State’s Tom Izzo
• $50,000: Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd, Mississippi’s Chris Beard, Kentucky’s Mark Pope, Auburn’s Bruce Pearl, Texas Tech’s Grant McCasland
• $37,500: Florida’s Todd Golden
• $30,000: Purdue’s Matt Painter
• $25,000: Alabama’s Nate Oats, Michigan’s Dusty May

Arkansas coach John Calipari doesn’t receive a specific bonus for reaching the Sweet 16, but the achievement does add $150,000 to his salary, which has a base pay of $7 million, for next season.

Contract information for Duke’s Jon Scheyer and BYU’s Kevin Young is not publicly available since those are private institutions, but it is likely they each have similar bonus structures set up.

Executive Rewards

Coaches aren’t the only ones cashing in this March. So are many athletic directors.

Tennessee’s Danny White, the highest-paid AD in the country at $2.75 million annually, receives a bonus worth 3% of his base salary for the Volunteers reaching the Sweet 16. That’s $82,500. 

Some are still waiting for another bonus. Kentucky AD Mitch Barnhart will receive $25,000 if the Wildcats reach the Final Four.

North Carolina AD and men’s tournament selection committee chairman Bubba Cunningham, who received a $67,905.66 bonus for the Tar Heels making the men’s tournament, won’t cash any more checks for the men’s basketball team after they lost to Ole Miss in the first round. He would have received $50,000 if they made the Sweet 16. Cunningham can still pocket $35,000 if UNC’s women’s team can top West Virginia on Monday night and advance to the Sweet 16.

Final preparations are underway for MLB to stage an unprecedented season with two of its 30 teams playing in minor league stadiums. 

With the domestic start of the league’s 2025 season set for Thursday after a high-profile opener last week in Japan, last-minute work is happening at Sacramento’s Sutter Health Park to house the A’s and at Tampa’s George M. Steinbrenner Field, where the Rays will play home games. 

The circumstances of each situation are quite different, with the A’s choosing Sacramento as an interim step toward a permanent relocation to Las Vegas, while the Rays were forced to Steinbrenner Field by the damaging impacts of Hurricane Milton last fall. 

In both instances, though, a frenetic amount of work is happening in these final days before the regular season to bring the minor league facilities up to MLB standards. Both Sutter Health Park and Steinbrenner Field are roughly a third the size of a normal big-league facility. 

The ongoing work runs the gamut from back-of-house operations such as concessions and improved amenities for players to more fan-facing components such as improved scoreboards. The Rays also have the additional burden of temporarily changing some of the signage and branding at Steinbrenner Field from the Yankees, as the facility is also that club’s spring training home.  

“Look, it’s going to be an adventure; there’s no doubt about it,” said Yankees managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner. “They’re not going to have much time once we leave to do certain things they need to do, but [the Rays] are going to get it done.”

Prior History

There is some precedent for this, as the Blue Jays played at both Buffalo’s Sahlen Field and TD Ballpark in Dunedin, Fla., home of two of its minor league affiliates, in 2020 and part of 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The scale of what’s happening now, however, is so much greater. Beyond the involvement of a second team in this unique scenario, the A’s plan to be in Sacramento for a full three seasons until the planned opening of their $1.75 billion ballpark in Las Vegas. The A’s will also be sharing Sutter Health Park with the Sacramento River Cats, the Giants’ top affiliate. 

The Rays, meanwhile, are in a complete state of uncertainty between the hurricane repairs and the club’s recent decision to walk away from a deal for a planned $1.3 billion ballpark, and it’s anything but certain when they will be able to return to Tropicana Field. 

The A’s also have an awkward situation of their own creation in which they will not use “Sacramento” on road jerseys, in media, or on scoreboards—insisting instead to simply go by “Athletics.” The club, however, has spent aggressively this offseason amid rising pressure from the MLB Players Association, and could contend for a playoff spot in a weaker American League West division. 

With the reduced seating capacities for the A’s and Rays and the novelty of their new homes, the clubs now have the No. 1 and No. 3 median ticket prices for this season, respectively, according to Gametime.