01-26-2025, 03:17 PM
No question she is thriving at UCLA as a junior. As I understand it based on comments made, there were two concerns she had at Stanford (there may be others, but these are the two that have been articulated publicly). The first was around her mental health. Maybe that is something where the Athletics Department should have given her more resources (eg: counseling) to deal with it, and it is possible that she felt she was not getting an empathetic response from Stanford. It's also possible that the environment itself was very stressful or that once here she felt she needed a change in environment to help her cope. It's impossible to know, and really inappropriate to speculate. Maybe this is something Stanford screwed the pooch with or maybe it was unavoidable.
The second was around playing time. Stanford already had a star post (Brink) and a rising star (Iriafen). Even had she stayed, it would have been a struggle to get playing time her sophomore year, and that was clearly frustrating to her and her family. She would have been a featured player this year (probably the featured player on the team), had she stayed, but since both Brink (COVID year) and Iriafen (a Junior) had eligibility left, it's not like the staff could make any promises about where she would be on the depth chart.
So, hard to say whether this was avoidable or not. In another era (with a redshirt requirement for transfers, and when the approach everywhere to mental health was "tough it out"), maybe she would have stayed after her freshman year, seen a bit more time, and then found out that Brink was going to the NBA and both she and Iriafen would have been stars this year. Alas, it is this era, and we went from having a plethora of posts to a real deficit. The current environment is tough on Stanford.
While I am generally against the ease at which players can transfer, it is hard to get too upset here. She seems to be thriving at UCLA, and though I wish she had had the patience to stay at Stanford and persevere through the issues that wound up leading to her transfer, who am I to judge, really. Maybe she would have tried to stay and been miserable for four years, and always struggled to play in the Stanford system.
BC
The second was around playing time. Stanford already had a star post (Brink) and a rising star (Iriafen). Even had she stayed, it would have been a struggle to get playing time her sophomore year, and that was clearly frustrating to her and her family. She would have been a featured player this year (probably the featured player on the team), had she stayed, but since both Brink (COVID year) and Iriafen (a Junior) had eligibility left, it's not like the staff could make any promises about where she would be on the depth chart.
So, hard to say whether this was avoidable or not. In another era (with a redshirt requirement for transfers, and when the approach everywhere to mental health was "tough it out"), maybe she would have stayed after her freshman year, seen a bit more time, and then found out that Brink was going to the NBA and both she and Iriafen would have been stars this year. Alas, it is this era, and we went from having a plethora of posts to a real deficit. The current environment is tough on Stanford.
While I am generally against the ease at which players can transfer, it is hard to get too upset here. She seems to be thriving at UCLA, and though I wish she had had the patience to stay at Stanford and persevere through the issues that wound up leading to her transfer, who am I to judge, really. Maybe she would have tried to stay and been miserable for four years, and always struggled to play in the Stanford system.
BC