The Los Angeles Times discusses what JuJu Watkins can expect after her recent ACL tear. 

USC sophomore star JuJu Watkins’ knee buckled beneath her during the first quarter of the Trojans’ second-round win over Mississippi State in the NCAA tournament. Watkins was carried to the locker room, and an MRI revealed that she sustained a torn ACL. The injury not only ends her season just as USC’s tournament run is beginning, but also presumably will require her to sit out well into next season.

“We’ve gotten much better at not just looking at it as a specific window, like, ‘OK, nine months and now you’re ready,’” said Gabriella E. Ode, MD, FAAOS, FAOA, sports medicine surgeon at the HSS Sports Medicine Institute and team physician for the New York Liberty. “There’s going to be a lot of differences from person to person in that recovery process. There’s nothing wrong even with a 12-month recovery. I want to be very explicit about that. There are many people who it takes 12 months.”

“Probably the worst thing that an athlete can do is go back when they’re not ready,” Dr. Ode said.

Read the full article at latimes.com.