JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
The first weekend of the women's NCAA basketball tournament has come and gone without major upsets, but many fans are upset that the country's consensus player of the year, JuJu Watkins, suffered a season-ending knee injury yesterday. Her No. 1-seeded USC team still won. They continue to the Sweet 16, where 15 other teams are still hoping to bust a bracket or two. Nicole Auerbach's bracket is doing just fine for now. She's NBC Sports' insider. Welcome back.
NICOLE AUERBACH: Yeah, thanks for having me.
SUMMERS: I mean, Nicole, so many people's hearts are just broken after that JuJu Watkins injury. Am I wrong to say that that's the biggest headline of the tournament so far? And how big of a loss is this for her team, for the tournament as a whole?
AUERBACH: Yeah, it feels like it sucked the wind out of the entire tournament. I mean, it feels like these are going to be dark clouds that hang over the rest of the way because of what a bright light she is. I mean, she's in all the commercials in between the game action. I mean, she is such a star. And it's so upsetting to not get to see her have this moment and this chance. It felt like she'd taken that baton from Caitlin Clark and was the face of the sport and these USC Trojans trying to make history and cut down the nets. And it's going to be hard to watch the rest of the tournament and think about the rest of the tournament without thinking about this injury.
SUMMERS: So with JuJu Watkins' injury, that really deprives us of a potential sort of collision between her and UConn's Paige Bueckers in the Elite Eight or with star center Lauren Betts from crosstown rivals UCLA in the Final Four. So I just want to ask you, what teams have impressed you so far, and who's really set up to take advantage of this really unfortunate power vacuum?
AUERBACH: Well, I do think UConn is positioned to be that team because of - as you mentioned, that they were in line to meet them in the Elite Eight. And I remember on Selection Sunday thinking that that was unfortunate that some of these stars were going to meet so early in the tournament, but now it certainly paves the way for UConn to get to the Final Four in Paige's last season and cap off the season there with, you know, the championship DNA of that program giving them a good shot to cut down the nets at the end.
I also think Notre Dame, in a different region, has been playing extremely well. They slumped a little bit heading into Selection Sunday, but they look like the team that reached No. 1 in the AP poll earlier this season. So I would not be surprised to see them in Tampa as well.
SUMMERS: All right. So before we get there, play resumes on Friday. When you're looking ahead to the next round, what's the most intriguing matchup that you're watching?
AUERBACH: Well, we're going to get a North Carolina-Duke game, and no matter what sport, no matter what gender, that is always interesting. And so we'll get that on Friday out of the Birmingham site. So I'm excited for that because I think this Duke team, led by Kara Lawson, is really peaking. They won the ACC tournament for the first time in more than a decade. And I am fascinated by how far she can take this particular team just five years into this job.
SUMMERS: All right, so here's a question I've got for you. I live in Maryland. I watched that double-overtime game. And I know that they're going up against South Carolina coming up. But I know in your predictions, you did not have the defending national champion, South Carolina, advancing. Tell me more about that. I might be stirring the pot a little bit, but where do you see them as vulnerable?
AUERBACH: Well, I just think that this is a year where it wasn't South Carolina versus the field and that there are six, seven, maybe eight teams you could have made a case to win it all. To me, that means that there is a chance that South Carolina doesn't get to Tampa and gets beaten along the way. That Maryland team is so interesting to me. I think that that game would have been the moment of the tournament. So I think they're capable of pushing them. I think there's other teams in the region that could do it or at the Final Four.
SUMMERS: Last year, when we talked about women's college basketball, there was sort of this one big story that subsumed everything, which was Caitlin Clark breaking the college scoring record. What does the energy look like around the tournament this year now that she's gone pro?
AUERBACH: Well, I was interested to see if there would be, like, a significant drop off in interest, and I really don't think there has been. I mean, I don't think you're going to see the record, record numbers of viewership, but you already are seeing that people stuck around who were introduced to the sport in recent years, and they are more familiar with the household names like JuJu - unfortunately, she's out for the rest of the way - but Paige and Hannah Hidalgo at Notre Dame, Madison Booker at Texas. Like, there are stars that have stepped into that void that people have gotten to know and learn. It's going to be very different without Caitlin, but I think what people are being exposed to are greatness in a number of different programs with a number of different coaches and new stars, but with the same high-quality level of play.
SUMMERS: Nicole Auerbach covers college athletics for NBC Sports. Thank you so much.
AUERBACH: Thanks for having me.
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