by 
Kiki Iriafen tried to play cautiously. But the man who SerenAdde her new USC teammates and coaches during dinner in the back room of their chic restaurant in Paris had just released an extra microphone. And now teammates have her objection.
She first wiped them off. But they already knew her well enough to know she couldn’t leave it.
So on the eve of the USC season, Iriafen stood up, grabbed the microphone and participated in singing together with the “Killing Me Softly” from the Fugees. She walked through the aisle and worked the back room of the restaurant as she broke it out. The entire room sang with her at the last chorus.
It was just the kind of spotlight stems that her Trojan teammates would expect from De Ster Vooruit during a fantastic 25-2 season of 25-2 at USC.
“That is just Unapologically Kiki,” explains senior Rayah Marshall.
Read more: Kiki Iriafen helps power No. 6 USC for the victory over comeback on Washington
And to think, when she switched from Stanford last spring, it was not clear how iriafen-one probably a top-five choice in the coming WNBA concept-zou fits a team that already had a ball-dominant star in Juju Watkins. But at the end of February, with the Trojan horses no. 4 in the country and a Big Ten title on the line on Saturday against no. 2 UCLA, Iriafen was an inseparable part of their national title chased and not only for her almost nightly double doubles.
“Kiki brings such a joy, such a bustling,” said coach Lindsay Gottlieb. “We don’t try to take that for granted.”
Sticking in the spotlight was never a problem for the constantly sunny iriafen. But finding where she suited usc, turned out to be more a process, a process that took time and tested her mental resilience.
It started well before that trip in Paris, before she even committed herself to USC. The legendary coach Tara Vanderer was just retired in Stanford, and Iriafen, a native LA and former Harvard-Westlake height, considered both USC and UCLA when Watkins called her. The two had crossed paths many times as part of the hoop scene of the city, but they had never played in the same team.
During various conversations they spoke about their fit and their goals. Iriafen even spoke with the Van Watkins family. The prospect of a partnership was tempting: she had made the last four as a first -year student at Stanford, but only played in the cardinal loss of championship for one minute. Two years had flown by without a return trip.
“I just had the feeling that I was still missing something,” Iriafen said.
Together, Watkins and Iriafen knew that they had the potential to form one of the most powerful one-two bumps in college basketball. They also acknowledged that this would require a sacrifice. Even if neither of them would fully understood at the time what that would look like in practice.
“The most important thing was that we were tailored to the same goals,” Iriafen said. “Whatever it is needed to win a National Championship, whatever it takes to win, that’s what we want. We both really wanted that. If I really would give the extra things, the statistics and all those things, I would have just stayed where I was. But I really wanted to end my university career with a bang. “
In the beginning it felt seamless. USC teammates did their best to make her welcome.
“From the moment I arrived here,” Iriafen says, “It was like:” We want you here, we appreciate what you say: “Such things.”
But on the field it was like stepping into a whole new world. The system at USC was completely different from the more rigid she had developed in Stanford, where the touches in the Hoge Post were regularly made for her. Gottlieb’s attack, for comparison, ran fewer sets with much more freedom, more pick and roles and an improvisation flow that in the beginning felt a bit uncomfortable. More was also requested from Iriafen for defense. Until USC, she was never really asked to monitor the circumference.
Read more: Rayah Marshall sets the tone for No. 4 USC in Win at no. 25 Illinois
All adjustments pushed iriafen in a way that she is now grateful. But at the time: “There were definitely some growing pains.”
The early loss for Notre Dame stands out in mind. Iriafen was good for 15 points – almost 25% of the USC score – and pulled down nine rebounds. But she felt she had failed the team. She got away and wondered what role she had to play.
She did not immediately find those answers. There were nights that Iriafen would put it all together, as when she scored 30 in a victory over Saint Louis. Or her piece four Double-Doubles in five games in December.
But until the season she still didn’t feel that way. And now there were more eyes on her than ever before.
“There are so many things on social media, so many expectations you have for yourself,” Iriafen said. “And if things don’t go the way you want, is it about how you keep appearing every day? How do you keep pouring it and keep believing in yourself? “
Those fit questions have been an undercurrent for the majority of the season, for more than just iriafen. Due to this dynamic navigating, constant adjustments – and regular reassurance – from Gottlieb has required in detail about the management of the weight of expectations.
That weight seems to have been lifted since the beginning of February. Since the loss of USC against Iowa, the Trojans have won six in a row, with a few top 10 victories and two more against teams in the top 25, while Iriafen has had a tear, on average 20 points in that piece.
One night she looked out of the species was in the victory of USC at UCLA, because Iriafen opened the game one to nine from the field. Watkins came to life in her absence and scored 38, but it was Iriafen who helped to complete the top brown with nine points in the fourth quarter.
“I now have the feeling that we are in a much better place,” she said.
It also took time for Watkins to find out how best to play at Iriafen.
“I have never really played with a player like them,” says Watkins. “She certainly raised my IQ.”
What happens next for USC, with the NCAA tournament that is approaching quickly, will not last hinges on Iriafen, who has shown that she can step into the spotlight when the moment requires it.
The video -evidence of the Galen Center Jumbotron played for everyone who can be seen last week, while Iriafen’s Paris performs the speaker in the Senior Day pans in Paris.
It was a perfect moment to capture what she had brought to USC.
“I think her WNBA career is not in danger,” Gottlieb said about that performance. “But we thought it was great.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
