Stanford junior forward Kiki Iriafen enters the transfer portal
On Friday, Stanford women’s basketball junior forward Kiki Iriafen entered the transfer portal with a do not contact tag. The news comes just a couple days after legendary head coach Tara VanDerveer announcing her retirement. Iriafen was the Pac-12 Most Improved Player this past season, averaging 19.4 points and 11.0 rebounds per game. She led the team in scoring and was second in rebounds behind Cameron Brink.
Iriafen is completing her degree in Design Engineering this summer and thus will have the ability to be a grad transfer at a new school if she so chooses. That’s something that ups the odds of her going elsewhere. Also, the fact that she has a do not contact tag could signal she has a specific school in mind.
For Stanford and new head coach Kate Paye, this is obviously not a good development, but one that shouldn’t catch them by surprise. There were rumblings of Iriafen possibly entering the portal right after the NCAA tournament ended. That said, the prospect of not having Iriafen next season is a brutal one for the Cardinal. She had such an amazing season and would be a sure-fire star for Paye to have for her first year as head coach.
At this point, all that Paye and Stanford can do is make the strongest pitch they can to get Iriafen to stay on The Farm for one more season. Stanford men’s basketball got good news today with junior center Maxime Raynaud withdrawing from the portal and deciding to come back for one more year. So that should give them some hope to maybe convince Iriafen to do the same.
Though I should caution, these are not the exact same situations as Iriafen will have her degree in hand come the summertime. That gives her more freedom to explore her options and make this all about basketball. Hats off to her for completing her degree in three years. That’s impressive. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out and whether or not Stanford will be able to reel her back in for one more year.
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