Culture

Jennings: Without JuJu Watkins, the show goes on. Expect women’s March Madness to deliver

Published

9 months ago

March 28, 2025

Jennings: Without JuJu Watkins, the show goes on. Expect women’s March Madness to deliver

So much had been heaped on JuJu Watkins from the start — from the moment she set foot on USC’s campus, she was the one who would bring the program back to the mountaintop. This season, she was the player who would carry the star power in women’s college basketball in the wake of Caitlin Clark.

It was a lot of weight on anyone’s shoulders, but she handled it well. She thrived under that responsibility and blossomed in the spotlight.

But last weekend, the biggest star in women’s college basketball was carried away after collapsing to the court with a season-ending ACL tear. Her absence has left USC fans stunned and the women’s college basketball world restless.

Some kind words for JuJu Watkins 🥹 pic.twitter.com/8syMkUOUCu
— espnW (@espnW) March 25, 2025

Salt in the wound? Commercials featuring Watkins will continue playing during the NCAA Tournament. She’s the biggest individual star in women’s college hoops right now, drawing red-carpet-like turnout from celebrities at her games in the Galen Center. That reception would have boomed with a Final Four trip or national championship as an undeniable Hollywood storyline.

While prayers rained on Los Angeles for Watkins’ recovery, questions bubbled up: What now? Who now?

It’s a fair question. And it echoes the refrain women’s basketball was asked repeatedly after last season, when Clark departed for the WNBA. Would her legions of fans and millions of viewers who set records watching her play for Iowa stick around for the 2024-25 college season?

Nobody expected this season’s tournament to match the record-setting viewership of last season, but progress can’t be measured just in year-to-year gains. And while no one expected the numbers to quite reach the fever pitch of Clark Mania a season ago, the trend continues in one direction: upward.

The first two rounds of the tournament featured no Cinderellas, no major upsets, no Clark. They were light on the dramatics that some believe necessary to attract viewers. And yet, the numbers don’t lie — ratings from the first two rounds ranked second best in tournament history, coming in at 43 percent higher than in 2023, which now stands as the third-best year in tournament history viewership.

As generational as Clark was, the game has still shown momentum in her wake. With Watkins absent over the rest of this tournament, as large as that will loom, there’s no reason to think the sport isn’t strong enough to continue.

Because this question isn’t new.

Many forget that before Clark captivated the country, Paige Bueckers was doing the same. A UConn star as a freshman, she won the national Player of the Year in 2021 and became an early darling of the name, image and likeness era. Then, she tore her ACL and missed an entire season, leaving questions about how the sport would endure without its new prodigy who filled arenas.

It was in Bueckers’ absence that Clark and Angel Reese emerged, overflowing that void to bring even more interest to the game and push the sport to higher horizons, culminating in one of tournament history’s most epic showdowns. Last season, South Carolina’s undefeated campaign was led by coach Dawn Staley, who’s among sports’ most influential figures. The Gamecocks were tested by Clark’s dazzling displays, drawing viewership ratings that dwarfed even 2023’s high standards.

When Bueckers was out, Clark and Reese answered. Bueckers had done the same after Oregon’s Sabrina Ionescu went to the WNBA. And fans were similarly skeptical about a lack of star power when Maya Moore graduated from UConn.

The women’s game has proved time and again — especially in these last few seasons — that it will produce. Luminaries will emerge and captivate basketball fans.

Perhaps the answer is not as obvious as it was a week ago, when the nation’s best player was leading a resurgent program with a national following and instant recognition on a must-see journey.

Similar to the reactions Clark, Moore and others before them inspired, coaches were simultaneously vexed trying to stop them but appreciative to what they did for the game. Sometimes, it’s easier to see the growth from within.

If there’s a coach who can attest to the value of players such as Watkins and their impact on the sport, it’s UConn’s Geno Auriemma. He has seen more phenoms up close than anyone else, many who became so beloved they could be referenced by their first names (or initials) alone: Sue, Dee, Maya, Stewie.

When the ESPN broadcast wrapped its coverage Monday from UConn’s second-round win after Bueckers scored 34 points, Auriemma sat courtside in Storrs for an interview. He was asked to answer quickly so the broadcast could flip to the USC-Mississippi State game starting on the West Coast.

“Oh, man, get off me right now, let’s get to her. I want to watch her play,” Auriemma said with a smile. “Here comes JuJu. Give me some JuJu! … Over to you, JuJu, take over!”

Geno counting down the broadcast and then tossing it to JuJu telling her to “takeover” >>>> https://t.co/ErmNJNrp5d pic.twitter.com/A2stO3eH2A
— Tyler DeLuca (@TylerDeLuca) March 25, 2025

Coaches respect great players; game respects game. (If only the latter had some mercy for knees.)

So what next? Who now?

That’s what the next two weeks will decide. But if the past tells us anything, it’s that the women’s tournament will deliver. The most elite talent is still in the game. Every No. 1 seed (UCLA, South Carolina, USC and Texas), 2 seed (UConn, NC State, Duke and TCU) and 3 seed (Notre Dame, LSU, North Carolina and Oklahoma) is left standing. The spotlight is trained back on Bueckers, and as previous tournaments have taught us, even casual viewers will become new fans of the game’s best players. Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo, LSU’s Flau’Jae Johnson and UCLA’s Lauren Betts have been exemplary all season, and new young players are poised to surprise us.

In Spokane and Birmingham, the show goes on. Nets will be cut. New stars will be made and crowned, and more familiar stars will shoulder a heavier load.

A Watkins-less USC is not the same as it once was, nor is a Watkins-less tournament. But the best testament to Watkins’ greatness and star power is that even in her absence, the sport she’s helping to build will continue to grow.

(Photo: Justin Casterline / Getty Images)

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Culture

Video: 250 Years of Jane Austen, in Objects

Published

3 days ago

December 18, 2025

Press Room

Video: 250 Years of Jane Austen, in Objects

new video loaded: 250 Years of Jane Austen, in Objects

To capture Jane Austen’s brief life and enormous impact, editors at The New York Times Book Review assembled a sampling of the wealth, wonder and weirdness she has brought to our lives.

By Jennifer Harlan, Sadie Stein, Claire Hogan, Laura Salaberry and Edward Vega

December 18, 2025

Culture

Try This Quiz and See How Much You Know About Jane Austen

Published

5 days ago

December 16, 2025

Press Room

Try This Quiz and See How Much You Know About Jane Austen

“Window seat with garden view / A perfect nook to read a book / I’m lost in my Jane Austen…” sings Kristin Chenoweth in “The Girl in 14G” — what could be more ideal? Well, perhaps showing off your literary knowledge and getting a perfect score on this week’s super-size Book Review Quiz Bowl honoring the life, work and global influence of Jane Austen, who turns 250 today. In the 12 questions below, tap or click your answers to the questions. And no matter how you do, scroll on to the end, where you’ll find links to free e-book versions of her novels — and more.

Culture

Revisiting Jane Austen’s Cultural Impact for Her 250th Birthday

Published

6 days ago

December 16, 2025

Press Room

Revisiting Jane Austen’s Cultural Impact for Her 250th Birthday

On Dec. 16, 1775, a girl was born in Steventon, England — the seventh of eight children — to a clergyman and his wife. She was an avid reader, never married and died in 1817, at the age of 41. But in just those few decades, Jane Austen changed the world.

Her novels have had an outsize influence in the centuries since her death. Not only are the books themselves beloved — as sharply observed portraits of British society, revolutionary narrative projects and deliciously satisfying romances — but the stories she created have so permeated culture that people around the world care deeply about Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, even if they’ve never actually read “Pride and Prejudice.”

With her 250th birthday this year, the Austen Industrial Complex has kicked into high gear with festivals, parades, museum exhibits, concerts and all manner of merch, ranging from the classily apt to the flamboyantly absurd. The words “Jane mania” have been used; so has “exh-Aust-ion.”

How to capture this brief life, and the blazing impact that has spread across the globe in her wake? Without further ado: a mere sampling of the wealth, wonder and weirdness Austen has brought to our lives. After all, your semiquincentennial doesn’t come around every day.

By ‘A Lady’

Jane Austen’s House, Chawton, England

Austen published just four novels in her lifetime: “Sense and Sensibility” (1811), “Pride and Prejudice” (1813), “Mansfield Park” (1814) and “Emma” (1815). All of them were published anonymously, with the author credited simply as “A Lady.” (If you’re in New York, you can see this first edition for yourself at the Grolier Club through Feb. 14.)

Where the Magic Happened

Janice Chung for The New York Times

Placed near a window for light, this diminutive walnut table was, according to family lore, where the author did much of her writing. It is now in the possession of the Jane Austen Society.

An Iconic Accessory

Jane Austen’s House, Chawton, England

Few of Austen’s personal artifacts remain, contributing to the author’s mystique. One of them is this turquoise ring, which passed to her sister-in-law and then her niece after her death. In 2012, the ring was put up for auction and bought by the “American Idol” champion Kelly Clarkson. This caused quite a stir in England; British officials were loath to let such an important cultural artifact leave the country’s borders. Jane Austen’s House, the museum now based in the writer’s Hampshire home, launched a crowdfunding campaign to Bring the Ring Home and bought the piece from Clarkson. The real ring now lives at the museum; the singer has a replica.

Austen Onscreen

Since 1940, when Austen had a bit of a moment and Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier starred in MGM’s rather liberally reinterpreted “Pride and Prejudice,” there have been more than 20 international adaptations of Austen’s work made for film and TV (to say nothing of radio). From the sublime (Emma Thompson’s Oscar-winning “Sense and Sensibility”) to the ridiculous (the wholly gratuitous 2022 remake of “Persuasion”), the high waists, flickering firelight and double weddings continue to provide an endless stream of debate fodder — and work for a queen’s regiment of British stars.

Jane Goes X-Rated

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

The rumors are true: XXX Austen is a thing. “Jane Austen Kama Sutra,” “Pride and Promiscuity: The Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen” and enough slash fic and amateur porn to fill Bath’s Assembly Rooms are just the start. Purists may never recover.

A Lady Unmasked

Jane Austen’s House, Chawton, England

Austen’s final two completed novels, “Northanger Abbey” and “Persuasion,” were published after her death. Her brother Henry, who oversaw their publication, took the opportunity to give his sister the recognition he felt she deserved, revealing the true identity of the “Lady” behind “Pride and Prejudice,” “Emma,” etc. in a biographical note. “The following pages are the production of a pen which has already contributed in no small degree to the entertainment of the public,” he wrote, extolling his sister’s imagination, good humor and love of dancing. Still, “no accumulation of fame would have induced her, had she lived, to affix her name to any productions of her pen.”

Wearable Tributes

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Jane Austen fan wants to find other Jane Austen fans, and what better way to advertise your membership in that all-inclusive club than with a bit of merch — from the subtle and classy to the gloriously obscene.

The Austen Literary Universe

Elizabeth Renstrom for The New York Times

On the page, there is no end to the adventures Austen and her characters have been on. There are Jane Austen mysteries, Jane Austen vampire series, Jane Austen fantasy adventures, Jane Austen Y.A. novels and, of course, Jane Austen romances, which transpose her plots to a remote Maine inn, a Greenwich Village penthouse and the Bay Area Indian American community, to name just a few. You can read about Austen-inspired zombie hunters, time-traveling hockey players, Long Island matchmakers and reality TV stars, or imagine further adventures for some of your favorite characters. (Even the obsequious Mr. Collins gets his day in the sun.)

A Botanical Homage

Created in 2017 to mark the 200th anniversary of Austen’s death, the “Jane Austen” rose is characterized by its intense orange color and light, sweet perfume. It is bushy, healthy and easy to grow.

Aunt Jane

Jane Austen’s House, Chawton, England

Hoping to cement his beloved aunt’s legacy, Austen’s nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh published this biography — a rather rosy portrait based on interviews with family members — five decades after her death. The book is notable not only as the source (biased though it may be) of many of the scant facts we know about her life, but also for the watercolor portrait by James Andrews that serves as its frontispiece. Based on a sketch by Cassandra, this depiction of Jane is softer and far more winsome than the original: Whether that is due to a lack of skill on her sister’s part or overly enthusiastic artistic license on Andrews’s, this is the version of Austen most familiar to people today.

Cultural Currency

Steve Parsons/Associated Press

In 2017, the Bank of England released a new 10-pound note featuring Andrews’s portrait of Austen, as well as a line from “Pride and Prejudice”: “I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading!” Austen is the third woman — other than the queen — to be featured on British currency, and the only one currently in circulation.

In the Trenches

During World War I and World War II, British soldiers were given copies of Austen’s works. In his 1924 story “The Janeites,” Rudyard Kipling invoked the grotesque contrasts — and the strange comfort — to be found in escaping to Austen’s well-ordered world amid the horrors of trench warfare. As one character observes, “There’s no one to touch Jane when you’re in a tight place.”

Baby Janes

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

You’re never too young to learn to love Austen — or that one’s good opinion, once lost, may be lost forever.

The Austen Industrial Complex

Elizabeth Renstrom for The New York Times

Maybe you’ve not so much as seen a Jane Austen meme, let alone read one of her novels. No matter! Need a Jane Austen finger puppet? Lego? Magnetic poetry set? Lingerie? Nameplate necklace? Plush book pillow? License plate frame? Bath bomb? Socks? Dog sweater? Whiskey glass? Tarot deck? Of course you do! And you’re in luck: What a time to be alive.

Around the Globe

Goucher College Special Collections & Archives, Alberta H. and Henry G. Burke Collection; via The Morgan Library & Museum

Austen’s novels have been translated into more than 40 languages, including Polish, Finnish, Chinese and Farsi. There are active chapters of the Jane Austen Society, her 21st-century fan club, throughout the world.

Playable Persuasions

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

In Austen’s era, no afternoon tea was complete without a rousing round of whist, a trick-taking card game played in two teams of two. But should you not be up on your Regency amusements, you can find plenty of contemporary puzzles and games with which to fill a few pleasant hours, whether you’re piecing together her most beloved characters or using your cunning and wiles to land your very own Mr. Darcy.

#SoJaneAusten

The wild power of the internet means that many Austen moments have taken on lives of their own, from Colin Firth’s sopping wet shirt and Matthew Macfadyen’s flexing hand to Mr. Collins’s ode to superlative spuds and Mr. Knightley’s dramatic floor flop. The memes are fun, yes, but they also speak to the universality of Austen’s writing: More than two centuries after her books were published, the characters and stories she created are as relatable as ever.

Bonnets Fit for a Bennett

Peter Flude for The New York Times

For this summer’s Grand Regency Costumed Promenade in Bath, England — as well as the myriad picnics, balls, house parties, dinners, luncheons, teas and fetes that marked the anniversary — seamstresses, milliners, mantua makers and costume warehouses did a brisk business, attiring the faithful in authentic Regency finery. And that’s a commitment: A bespoke, historically accurate bonnet can easily run to hundreds of dollars.

Most Ardently, Jane

The Morgan Library & Museum

Austen was prolific correspondent, believed to have written thousands of letters in her lifetime, many to her sister, Cassandra. But in an act that has frustrated biographers for centuries, upon Jane’s death, Cassandra protected her sister’s privacy — and reputation? — by burning almost all of them, leaving only about 160 intact, many heavily redacted. But what survives is filled with pithy one-liners. To wit: “I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”

Stage and Sensibility

Austen’s works have been adapted numerous times for the stage. Some plays (and musicals) hew closely to the original text, while others — such as Emily Breeze’s comedic riff on “Pride and Prejudice,” “Are the Bennet Girls OK?”, which is running at New York City’s West End Theater through Dec. 21 — use creative license to explore ideas of gender, romance and rage through a contemporary lens.

Austen 101

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

Austen remains a reliable fount of academic scholarship; recent conference papers have focused on the author’s enduring global reach, the work’s relationship to modern intersectionality, digital humanities and “Jane Austen on the Cheap.” And as one professor told our colleague Sarah Lyall of the Austen amateur scholarship hive, “Woe betide the academic who doesn’t take them seriously.”