LOS ANGELES – Kiki Iriafen had one year of collegiate ball left, and she wanted to spend it at home. For an entire breakout junior season at Stanford, people wormed their way into her ear, offering sweet whispers she should look to the portal. Iriafen ignored them all, until the Cardinal lost in the Sweet 16, and she was forced to sit and think about her future.
Some days, she was set on leaving. Some days, she was set on staying. But her head coach, the legendary Tara VanDerveer, was retiring, and it felt like the natural close to a three-year chapter – one that she hoped would bring her back to her hometown of Los Angeles.
After transferring in mid-April, Iriafen was weighing UCLA and USC . Lindsay Gottlieb, and the Trojans, made a hard push. They felt good.
Then, one day, Iriafen’s phone buzzed. She answered. It was Dawn Staley.
The Dawn Staley. “I would be lying if I said I’m not like, ‘Ohhhh gosh,’” USC head coach Gottlieb remembered. “Just a conversation with the national, defending national champs.
” On paper, it looked tragic for USC, because it was perfect for Iriafen. Staley had a reputation for developing bigs at South Carolina, the premier program in the country. Kamilla Cardoso, after all, had just been minted as a top-three WNBA Draft choice.
And Iriafen’s final choice came down to USC and USC, to Gottlieb and Staley, to back-to-back weekend visits to Southern California and then South Carolina in the late spring. She never took the second v.
