A mere five minutes into the second round of the 2025 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament, where USC took on Mississippi State, superstar sophomore guard JuJu Watkins suffered a season-ending ACL injury. She sat out the rest of the game, missed the rest of the tournament and will be sidelined for the majority, if not all, of next season. 

As I watched this heartbreaking event happen in real-time, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of déjà vu. Torn ACL injuries seem to be especially prevalent in women’s basketball. UConn star Paige Bueckers suffered the same injury before the 2022-23 season; she tore her ACL during practice and missed her entire junior campaign. I also recalled Los Angeles Sparks star and former Stanford Cardinal Cameron Brink tearing her ACL last season during a game against the Connecticut Sun.

It is truly devastating to witness such talented athletes be sidelined at such pivotal moments in their careers. Unfortunately, this trend seems to be more than just a coincidence; there is a significant disparity in how frequently women suffer ACL tears in comparison to men. 

According to research by Yale Medicine, women are two to eight times more likely than men to tear an ACL. Studies have shown that this gap can be attributed to not only the structural differences between men and women athletes, but also their biomechanics —  how muscles and joints work together during activity — as well as hormonal factors.

Women also have wider hips than men, and they are also more likely to have knees that tilt inward, which can contribute to the prevalence of ACL tears in women athletes. In addition, the ACL tissue itself is often thinner in women, which means it requires less force for the ligaments to tear. 

Although there is some solid research into these repetitive injuries in women’s sports, this issue shines light on a broader concern: there is a blatant lack of research specifically focused on women athletes. 

As women’s sports have continued to rapidly gain traction and popularity in recent years, numerous aspects of the game have grown along with it, such as increased media coverage and improved practice facilities. However, the field of sports science seems to be lagging. The rise in girls and women participating in sports is encouraging, but research focused and directed toward this group has not evolved at the same rate. 

Most training methods, injury prevention strategies and sports science research are based on male-dominated studies, leaving women underrepresented in research. Women and male athletes are completely different structurally, highlighting the importance of gender-based studies rather than general tactics and analysis.

Not only is there an evident lack of woman-athlete-focused research, but there is also a lack of exploration into this concerning gap and why it exists. The most recent study I found on this topic was from 2014, over ten years ago, and was titled: “Where are all the female participants in Sports and Exercise Medicine research?”  

This study analyzed over 1,300 sports-science articles and found that the average percentage of women participants per article across the journals ranged from just 35 to 37%, and that women are significantly underrepresented throughout the journals. 

I had never really attempted to search for articles and data surrounding the percentage of women versus men when it comes to sports-science research, but it was quite disappointing. The lack of research focused on women athletes directly impacts injury prevention and recovery, especially in physical sports like women’s basketball, where demands on the knees and legs are high. 

When thinking about Watkins’ future career prospects, it’s encouraging to look to stars like Bueckers, who made a miraculous comeback from multiple injuries to win a national championship with the Huskies this month. Still, women athletes deserve stronger support systems derived from gender-specific science, and more personalized injury prevention and recovery. 

One meaningful solution would be more women-athlete-based doctors who specialize in female anatomy. There are so many factors in women that contribute to performance in athletics, and as women’s sports continue to grow and prosper, that would be a game-changing addition. This shift is essential to the growth and safety of women’s athletics as a whole. 

For women’s sports to continue to thrive, superstars like Bueckers and Watkins need to be on the court, and specialized sports science for women athletes will need to go a long way in making that happen.  

Sloane Morra is a senior giving her opinions and perspectives on current issues in women’s sports through her column “Second Serve,” which runs every other Friday.