LOS ANGELES — Kiki Iriafen’s grandparents know, of course, that their granddaughter plays basketball. But they have no clue yet, as mother Yemi Iriafen chuckled, as to who she can become.
The Iriafen name, for generations, has revolved around values of education and Catholicism. You get good grades. You pray. Iriafen’s grandfather Segun Ogunsaju is a professor, and her grandmother Fadeke worked at a university in their home of Nigeria, and values do not break. For years, Iriafen was simply a student at Stanford in their eyes, and upon her early graduation this past year – after tacking on 22-unit workloads – Fadeke asked her granddaughter what was next.
Are you going to a job?
“Basketball is my job,” Iriafen tried to explain, a scholar who happened to have been recently named the best power forward in the nation.
Fadeke and Segun still live in Nigeria, and have not seen her play since high school, when Iriafen rounded into a prized recruit at Harvard-Westlake. Still, Iriafen plays for them. She plays for her mother Yemi and father Harrison, who raised her growing up in the San Fernando Valley to value family over all else. She plays for her sister Oyinkan, now also playing at Harvard-Westlake.
“I play,” Iriafen tells her mother sometimes, “for the people who have poured into me.”
Her landscape-shifting decision to transfer to USC, this spring, was about plenty: the opportunity to win a national title, the school’s investment into women’s basketball, playing for Lindsay Gottlieb. But this was, primarily, about coming home.
Iriafen’s life will truly begin soon, and take her somewhere even further, after her name’s likely called within the first two picks of the WNBA draft in April. She wanted to spend a year watching her sister’s games, and seeing her parents at hers. Fadeke and Segun are currently staying with family in Southern California, planning to attend USC’s home opener Nov. 9 to see Iriafen play collegiate ball for the first time.
“She wants to win, but nothing is guaranteed,” Yemi said. “But one thing that no one can take away from her will be her family present, at her games.”
After a breakout junior year putting up 19.4 points and 11 rebounds a game at Stanford, Iriafen’s import instantly elevated USC from an up-and-coming national riser to a true national-champion contender. Her on-court partnership with sophomore JuJu Watkins will determine if these Trojans can seize those expectations, an athletic finisher suddenly paired with a transcendent scoring guard. Soon, Iriafen’s name will echo over Galen Center loudspeakers alongside her newest pick-and-roll partner, nicknames uttered in such excitement they blend from two syllables to one.
Kiki. JuJu.
They have a head start on chemistry alone. The two share a bond in shared values, deeper than the simple homophony of their first names. Both came to USC for the same reasons. Both play for family. Both play for Los Angeles.
“They’re both just grounded,” Yemi said. “They’re both grounded, which is a beautiful thing.”
Meaningful choices
Since Iriafen was growing up, adhering to strong Nigerian values, her family has held a mantra: You are the “child of who you are.”
“That means when you’re out in public,” Yemi said, “you’re also respecting us.”
Watkins, too, is the child of who she is. Her great-grandfather Ted Watkins founded the Watts Labor Community Action Committee, a civil-rights leader in Watkins’ hometown of Watts. Dating to high school, she has found solace in her grandparents, cousins and aunts, visiting her family’s house in Watts after off nights and losses. On the day of her commitment to USC, an entire contingent of family and family friends filled the bleachers of Sierra Canyon High and watched Watkins sob over the significance of playing collegiate ball a few miles from home.
“Basketball’s going to take me everywhere around the world, I realize,” Watkins told this reporter before her senior year at Sierra Canyon. “But it’s important, for me and my family, to never forget where I come from.”
Through three years at Stanford, Iriafen never forgot where she came from, either. Her basketball journey had begun in a youth league in Porter Ranch, at Shepherd of the Hills Church, where Harvard-Westlake coach Melissa Hearlihy first saw her run up and down the floor in the eighth grade and was instantly sold. This winter, after Iriafen and Stanford were surprisingly bounced in the Sweet 16 by North Carolina State, she returned home to sit in the stands for a Harvard-Westlake playoff game and watch sister Oyinkan.
After the buzzer, Iriafen caught up with Hearlihy, her former coach.
“This meant so much to me,” she told Hearlihy, “to get a chance to see my sister play.”
Iriafen entered the transfer portal in April. She leaned toward USC or UCLA. Then Dawn Staley and national champion South Carolina came calling.
Yemi told her daughter it was her decision to make. She also told her she wanted her home.
Around the same time, too, Watkins reached out. The two were long friendly, having competed against each other in high school when Watkins was a freshman at Windward High, Iriafen sending Watkins a proud-of-you DM after the USC freshman hung 51 points on Stanford in March.
“Super friendly, super just, down-to-earth, that’s really all I can say,” Iriafen said of their April conversation. “And was like, ‘We want you here, and I want to play with you.’ And I was like, ‘I would love to play with you too.’”
Around the same time, too, Harrison Iriafen reached out to Watkins’ parents, asking for feedback on USC’s program and coaching staff. It meant “a lot” to Iriafen and her family, head coach Gottlieb reflected, that everyone welcomed the partnership. And quickly, both families – both children of who they are – realized they clicked plenty.
“Because I hold family so close to my heart,” Watkins reflected Tuesday, “I was able to see that early on from when she came to visit, her family was there.”
“I can see that she has very strong values,” Watkins continued, a few words later. “And I think that’s important, just, in life.”
The will to compete
Shortly after the Lakers’ season ended in in April, Watkins spent the summer working consistently with longtime trainer and former Lakers assistant Phil Handy, honing her left hand – and the area of her game Handy’s always seen as key to her full potential.
“I don’t really think JuJu cares as much about scoring as much as people think,” Handy told the Southern California News Group this summer. “It’s just a natural thing for her to be aggressive.”
“But in her aggression, now, as she starts to read the game and understand the game more, you’ll just see her become more of a well-rounded player in all aspects.”
Iriafen has arrived at the perfect moment, then, in Watkins’ development, after a freshman year putting up 22.4 shots a game (second in the nation, narrowly trailing Caitlin Clark). In her first NCAA Tournament run, Watkins provided plenty of transcendent moments but shot 37% from the floor, frequently forcing looks on a team lacking a wide array of consistent shot-creators.
“Just what she was given last year, it was her time to shine,” Iriafen said, a couple weeks ago. “So, she’s a very willing passer, and she’s always looking for all of us.”
That development, now, will be key in running a two-man game with Iriafen. A pick-and-roll between the two presents a devastating challenge for opposing defenses, as Iriafen detailed a couple weeks back. Overcommit to Iriafen on the roll, and Watkins can get to her beloved elbow pull-up. Overcommit to Watkins on the ball, and Iriafen will pop free herself.
“She’s just, she’s just a dog,” Watkins said Tuesday. “When you’re able to share the floor with people who want to win and are very competitive, it’s just – it’s just, like, a weight lifted off the shoulder.”
Related Articles
Young USC DEs Sam Greene, Kameryn Fountain bringing the pass-rush
How USC left guard Emmanuel Pregnon has inspired with toughness through injury
Wide receiver Makai Lemon has made himself key to USC’s future
Eric Musselman is going to sell you on USC men’s basketball
USC football makes a statement in routing Rutgers
“I feel like that’s half the battle, winning the championship,” she continued. “Just having people who are willing to come in every day and compete like we’re in a game.”
They’ll look to click, in all possible ways, leaders of a program that continues to buzz with hometown flavor. There’s Lynwood High product and stalwart big Rayah Marshall, forming an imposing and versatile frontcourt duo with Iriafen. There’s freshman Kennedy Smith, who went head-to-head with Watkins for two years in Sierra Canyon and Etiwanda’s vaunted Southern California rivalry.
“I think it’s super fun,” Iriafen said, “to do it with the girls that I grew up with.”