Sedona Prince to miss season after elbow surgery, ending Oregon career with eye on pros
The Oregon Ducks women’s basketball team announced Friday morning that center Sedona Prince will undergo a season-ending surgery on her elbow that will also end her career with the team.
Sedona Prince will undergo season-ending elbow surgery to repair a torn ligament.
Prince will exhaust her remaining eligibility to focus on recovery before pursuing a professional career.
More: https://t.co/8uhc35npzN pic.twitter.com/z5oED2yjdx— Oregon Women’s Basketball (@OregonWBB) October 28, 2022
Prince, a redshirt senior, began this year with only one remaining season of collegiate eligibility. The team says that she will forego that to focus on elbow rehabilitation and pursuing a professional career.
Prince is “heartbroken,” she said in the team’s release.
“I truly felt that this was the year I could showcase my work ethic and skills on the court, but also my self-growth and leadership ability. I tried to push through the injury and be there for my team, but after extensive evaluation from the best doctors in the world and looking deep inside myself at my passions and goals, I know that I have to take care of my elbow now in order to ensure long-term health and a sustained professional career.”
Prince, voted to the Pac-12 preseason all-conference team for the third consecutive season, was highly anticipated to play a large role in the Ducks’ success this year.
Sedona and the “shot heard round the world”
Prince refers to herself “as an elite athlete, current entrepreneur, and future wave maker” in the release. She added that she “aims to drive impact” in everything she does, and she has a resume to back that up.
Prince has become a social media celebrity, with 3.3 million followers across platforms and she has NIL deals with crocs, Native and Doordash.
She is most known for the viral TikTok she posted in March 2021, which highlighted the disparities between the men’s and women’s national college basketball tournaments.
Let me put it on Twitter too cause this needs the attention pic.twitter.com/t0DWKL2YHR
— Sedona Prince (@sedonaprince_) March 19, 2021
The clip provided a visual representation of gender inequality in sports and was seen more than 13 million times on TikTok and Twitter within days.
The momentum from her post garnered major pushback when NCAA president Mark Emmert first tried to explain away some of the differences. He eventually apologized and commissioned an external gender equity review.
Five months later, a report by civil rights lawyer Roberta A. Kaplan's firm detailed how the NCAA’s contracts, revenue distribution model, culture and more had come together to perpetuate gender inequities between the two tournaments.
The 114-page report proposed solutions and began with a nod to Prince’s video, calling it “the shot heard round the world.”
According to the team, Prince will make her final appearance in an Oregon uniform Friday, when will be honored prior to Oregon’s exhibition contest against Carroll College at 6 p.m. at Matthew Knight Arena.
