Status of Iriafen part of uncertainty program is facing
In six months, Stanford will be preparing for its first season in the ACC. It will not have first team AllAmerica forward/center Cameron Brink. Whether it will be able to bring in transfers will be determined in the next few weeks.
But the biggest question mark Tara VanDerveer’s team faces for next season: Will Kiki Iriafen be a part of it?
Without Brink, Iriafen — an AP All-America honorable mention this season — is supposed to be the player who will lead the Cardinal. She’s their only true post player left, she led the team this season with 19.4 points per game and was second with 11.9 rebounds. Her 41 points against Iowa State in the second round of the NCAA Tournament tied with Caitlin Clark for the most in a game in this year’s tournament. She was awarded the Katrina McClain Award last week as the best power forward in the nation.
But it’s a transfer-portal world now, and Stanford has yet to show it can compete there. Iriafen’s play blossomed throughout the season, and if the Cardinal can’t bring in portal talent to compete next season and fill the roster holes that became obvious in the tournament, Iriafen could choose to go elsewhere for a chance to win.
Sure, the Cardinal will need more players to produce the way Iriafen did as a junior. But they also need to keep her around for it.
“I pointed out to our team, as an example, Oregon State,” VanDerveer said after Stanford’s Sweet 16 loss to North Carolina State on March 29. The Beavers finished 27-8 (12-6 Pac-12) and reached the Elite Eight. “They won 13 games last year and four Pac-12 games. Their kids stuck together, got in the gym and they got better.”
Like many student-athletes, Iriafen is set to graduate in three years because of summer courses. But unlike transfer students, Iriafen and any other player who graduates from Stanford can participate in what is called a co-term for their grad season. That’s what Hannah Jump did to return for a fifth season.
Iriafen could do that. Or, she could take her Stanford degree and play a grad season elsewhere. That would deplete a Stanford roster already facing serious depth issues.
Even if the Cardinal do solve their perimeter shooting and backcourt woes, Iriafen is slated to be the centerpiece of the team next season. WNBA draft experts have predicted her to be a top-3 pick when she enters the draft after the next college season.
“I have every channel, Fios, Verizon. And we don’t have Pac-12 Network,” said Norfolk State head coach Larry Vickers after Stanford routed the Spartans in the first round. “I had no clue how about and how much better Kiki got. … I couldn’t believe, as somebody who follows everything and watches as much college basketball as I possibly can, that I had no clue that she was that good.”
That type of loss for Stanford, already reeling from no Brink and Jump, would be staggering.
The Cardinal lost three players to the portal last year in Lauren Betts, Indya Nivar and Agnes EmmaNnopu. Betts, the No. 1 recruit in the country the previous year, went on to start for UCLA and cemented herself as one of the top centers in the country.
Nivar and Emma-Nnopu had less of an impact, but Nivar did average 6.4 points per game for North Carolina, which would have been fifth most on the Cardinal, and Emma-Nnopu, who graduated from Stanford in three years, averaged 10.7 points per game and started 33 games at TCU.
Stanford was aggressive in the portal last year, but didn’t land the likes of McKenzie Forbes and Kayla Padilla (both USC) and Ioanna Krimili (Cal) because of university transfer restrictions that affect all of the school’s programs.
Perhaps that’s the case again. There is some optimism internally that something can work this year, and it almost has to. Stanford has its work cut out for it in the ACC already, but entering the conference without its breakout player would be extremely difficult.
Plenty of teams would love to add a senior with proven ability to dominate on both ends of the floor, too, and Iriafen’s jump shot has made her one of the most dangerous offensive players in the country. Her hometown USC is losing three starters, too, including Forbes, and Iriafen and Rayah Marshall would be another dominant duo in the paint.
And though NIL prospects might be getting better at Stanford after the athletic department finally endorsed the Lifetime Cardinal collective last week, Stanford generally has been perceived to be behind in that space. One source said top women’s basketball players are being paid upwards of $700,000 at top collectives, and they are allowed to contact players during the season without their current coaches knowing. So schools could have been pursuing Iriafen during her breakout season before Stanford has the opportunity to achieve what it wants this offseason.
Such are the realities of college sports, and Stanford’s need to keep pace with the changing landscape of it.
Retaining Iriafen might be essential not just for next season, but the longterm perception for Stanford being a program that can attract — and keep — top players.