On Monday, senior guard DiJonai Carrington announced her decision to transfer to Baylor, where she will be eligible immediately for the 2020-21 season as a graduate transfer. The San Diego native was a dual major in psychology and African & African American studies.
“At the end of the day, I feel like that’s where my heart is/was,” Carrington said on Instagram Live later in the evening. “It felt right.”
In just five games last season averaging 15 minutes per game, Carrington notched 7.6 points and 5.2 rebounds per game. Sitting out the remainder of the season with a knee injury, Carrington was unable to build upon a junior season during which she averaged 14 points and 7.5 rebounds, and later was named All-Pac-12 and reached the Elite Eight.
For Baylor, it is their third season in a row adding a high-profile graduate transfer. In 2018-19, it was LSU guard Chloe Jackson, who then went in the second round of the WNBA draft, and this most recent season guard Te’a Cooper led the team in scoring after arriving from South Carolina.
Previously, Carrington announced on Twitter that she was also considering UConn and Oregon. The decision was broadcast on Fox 5 San Diego.
“UConn and Oregon were obviously great schools, but I just felt the fit at Baylor,” Carrington said. “I felt that it fit me as a player and a person.”
According to the Hartford Courant, Carrington said on Instagram that she made her decision on Saturday.
At Stanford, Carrington played against Baylor twice. In the first meeting, as a sophomore in 2017 against Baylor, Carrington started, played 12 minutes, and went 1-for-5 in a blowout loss in Waco. The next year, Carrington scored 10 points on 3-of-6 from the field with six rebounds in an upset win inside Maples Pavilion. It was the lone loss of the year for a Baylor team that went on to win the national championship.
“I felt like I had a really good relationship with the coaches already,” Carrington said. “I think it’s a great fit. The style that they play is really up-tempo, and I definitely was ready for a new start, a new city, new state, new conference. Everything’s about to be new.”
Carrington will be transitioning from one Hall of Fame head coach, Tara VanDerveer, to another, Kim Mulkey.
For the Cardinal, this transfer is just one of numerous changes preceding the 2020-21 season, which VanDerveer enters five victories shy of passing Pat Summitt as the “winningest coach in women’s college basketball history.”
First reported by Yahoo News, the NCAA Division I Council voted to approve voluntary athletic activities in women’s basketball to start June 1 and go through June 30. The vote also applies to football and men’s basketball — however, access to campus is still up to the state and University.
Contact Daniel Martinez-Krams at danielmk ‘at’ stanford.edu.