Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic <\/p>\n
SPOKANE, Wash. \u2014 When Kiki Iriafen arrived at Spokane Arena Friday afternoon, fond memories of the last time she was here started to come back to her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Three years ago at this very arena, Iriafen, then a freshman at Stanford, danced the electric slide with her teammates on a confetti-filled court after the Cardinal beat Texas to advance to the Final Four.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI started my season in this building,\u201d Iriafen, now a senior at USC, said. \u201cAnd I kind of want to end in the same way that I started it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s wishful thinking considering the Trojans lost their best player, JuJu Watkins, earlier this week after she tore her right anterior cruciate ligament in their second-round win.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But Iriafen and the rest of the team have maintained the belief that they can still accomplish their season-long goal of winning a national championship.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are fighters,\u201d Iriafen said. \u201cSo we\u2019re just again keeping the main thing, the main thing, keeping the goal.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The outpouring of support for Watkins and USC over the past five days has been \u201cunbelievable.\u201d <\/p>\n
Coach Lindsay Gottlieb received scores of text messages from fellow coaches, including UConn\u2019s Geno Auriemma, UCLA\u2019s Cori Close and Notre Dame\u2019s Niele Ivey, with words of encouragement regarding the team\u2019s situation. <\/p>\n
Several more people, including Candace Parker and Lindsey Harding, have offered to connect with Watkins throughout her rehabilitation journey.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Want to tune into as much March Madness as you can? DIRECTV Stream and Hulu + Live TV both have you covered with every channel you\u2019ll need, plus free trials.<\/p>\n
Gottlieb gave her team the day off after it punched its ticket to the Sweet 16 Monday. <\/p>\n
The time allowed players to process their emotions and lock back in. <\/p>\n
About 36 hours later, the Trojans reconvened and started preparing for Saturday\u2019s game against Kansas State.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had a lot of emotions, but none of them are doubt,\u201d Gottlieb said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of belief in our team, there\u2019s a lot of love, obviously for JuJu and that\u2019s ever present, we don\u2019t need to say that. But I think that the prevailing feeling is that we can still do something together, and that\u2019s what JuJu wants us to do.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The pathway forward is tougher without Watkins but not impossible.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Watkins has led the Trojans this season in scoring, averaging 23.9 points on 42.6 percent shooting. <\/p>\n
She also contributes 6.8 rebounds, 3.4 assists, 2.3 steals and 1.8 blocks per game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019ll take a team-wide effort to fill as much of the void left by the star\u2019s absence.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody can replace JuJu. She\u2019s one of one. But I think a lot of us can step up in a lot of other areas that can help our team be very successful,\u201d Iriafen said. \u201cI\u2019m not trying to be bigger than who I am. \u2026 We all have the same similar sentiment: it\u2019s just doing your role, and kind of doing that little extra thing because we do have a lot to pick up.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The first few practices without Watkins participating have taken time to get used to. The sophomore phenom is still on the entire team\u2019s minds 24\/7.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Watkins\u2019 departing message for the team before the Trojans boarded their flight Thursday for Spokane, Washington, was that she was \u201csuper proud\u201d of them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cShe feels so confident in what we can do, what we can accomplish,\u201d Iriafen said. \u201cSo we still feel her presence even though she might not be with us physically.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic SPOKANE, Wash. \u2014 When Kiki Iriafen arrived at Spokane Arena Friday afternoon, fond memories of the last time she was here started to come back to her.\u00a0 Three years ago at this very arena, Iriafen, then a freshman at Stanford, danced the electric slide<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":256488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-256487","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256487"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":256489,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256487\/revisions\/256489"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}