Women’s basketball season ends in exodus, multiple players enter transfer portal

What started as a rough season for the Cardinal (21-14, 8-10 ACC) is ending with six players in the transfer portal. The Cardinal struggled in its second year in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), suffering losses to conference opponents including UC Berkeley, Notre Dame and Virginia Tech.

Six Cardinal players have announced their intentions to enter the transfer portal in the last week. Sunaja “Nunu” Agara, the star junior forward who’s been selected to the All-ACC second team twice, was among the first to announce that she’d be entering the portal on Instagram. Agara averaged 15.3 points, 8.7 rebounds and 1.2 steals in 29 games, missing some time during the season after an injury suffered against Cal on Jan. 25.

Freshman Lara Somfai also took to Instagram to announce her intentions to leave Stanford on April 5th. The 6’3” forward was a five-star recruit and lived up to the hype — she was named ACC Rookie of the Week four times, and was ultimately selected to the ACC All-Freshman Team. She averaged 10.8 points, 9.1 rebounds and 1.5 assists in 32 games played.

Somfai has since committed to the Texas Christian University Horned Frogs, following in the footsteps of former Stanford guard Agnes Emma-Nnopu. TCU’s program that has shot up in the rankings in the last three seasons after acquiring players like Hailey Van Lith and Olivia Miles. Somfai will join the top team in the Big 12 and try to carry on the legacy Miles has left.

On April 7, junior Courtney Ogden informed On3 that she will be moving on from The Farm as well. Ogden took on a much larger role this year, skyrocketing from 18.8 minutes per game to 30.8. The 6’1” forward averaged 12.9 points, 4.3 rebounds and 1.1 steals per game and was named ACC Co-Player of the Week in December.

Among the other players leaving the Cardinal are freshman Carly Amborn, sophomore Harper Peterson and junior transfer Mary Ashley Stevenson. 

In her Instagram post, Peterson expressed “hopes of finding a home that will challenge me on and off the court while valuing me for who I am.” None of the players saw the floor very much, despite Stevenson being named Big Ten Freshman of the Year for Purdue University in 2024. 

The portal doesn’t close until the 24th.

These announcements come on the back of a season unfortunately cut short for the Cardinal. The team suffered a nail-biter overtime loss in the ACC tournament to the University of Miami, extinguishing hopes of a postseason run in the NCAA tournament. The team subsequently played in the WBIT tournament, making it to the quarterfinal before losing 76-61 to Brigham Young University. The team was notably without Somfai during the tournament.

Head coach Kate Paye enters this postseason with large gaps on both sides of the ball to fill. Agara and Somfai led the team in points and rebounds per game respectively, and in future matchups against tough ACC opponents like Duke and NC State, the scrappiness and production they brought will be greatly missed.

Assuming she stays with the team, the Cardinal will most likely look to junior guard Chloe Cardy to assume these responsibilities. Cardy averaged 12.0 points, 3.1 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game on 31.8 minutes, cashing in an impressive 50 three-pointers on the season. Cardy will assume a leadership role during the 2026-27 season as a senior and will have the opportunity to continue to show her value as a scorer in the absence of Agara.

ACC All-Freshman selectionee Hailee Swain and sophomore Kennedy Umeh — former five and four stars respectively — will also play important roles for the Cardinal as the team looks to rebound from a less-than-stellar campaign and drastic roster changes.

Among other things, the team will undoubtedly need to fix its turnover problem to see more success next season. This year, the Cardinal turned the ball over 14.4 times per game. Opponents averaged 14.0 turnovers a game, and while the difference seems minimal, those points in transition add up. 

The team also seemed to struggle to bring its first-quarter momentum to the rest of its games, with its cumulative point differential dropping from 126 points in the first to 56, 35 and 46 points each in subsequent periods. The Cardinal was outscored by eight points in overtimes.

Paye has yet to provide comments to the media regarding the portal news.

Despite these upcoming challenges for Paye and the rest of Stanford women’s basketball, fans should remain hopeful for the program. The team won five more games this season than it did the previous year, and with a recruiting class made of incoming four-star freshmen Jordyn Wheeler and Elyse Ngenda, the Cardinal could very well have a bounce-back season next year.

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