No, she’ll do it herself, on her own timeline, make a beeline from A past B straight to the W, where her WNBA dream job is exceeding her own lofty expectations.

The 21-year-old former Harvard-Westlake basketball star – you might also know her from her season at USC, starring alongside JuJu Watkins – is an All-Star already.

She’ll suit up for Saturday’s WNBA All-Star Game in Indianapolis along with fellow rookies Sonia Citron, Iriafen’s Mystics teammate, and Paige Bueckers, the Dallas Wings’ No. 1 overall draft pick. They’ll make it just 36 WNBA rookies to participate in a WNBA All-Star Game since it debuted in 1999, per Across the Timeline.

“It’s incredible,” said Melissa Hearlihy, Iriafen’s former Harvard-Westlake coach. “But it’s not surprising.”

No, because this is Kiki Iriafen. And not so long ago, when she decided, in eighth grade, that she wanted to go to Harvard-Westlake, she filled out all the required forms and paperwork that give grownups headaches and presented them to her mom, Yemi, completed except for her signature. “I’m a very independent person,” Kiki said. “I like to get things done.”

This is Kiki Iriafen, who completed her degree in product design and mechanical engineering at Stanford – in three years, while, of course, playing Division I basketball. Who added a master’s degree in entrepreneurship and innovation from USC while also trying to chase a championship with the Trojans.

This is Kiki Iriafen, whose fast track to professional All-Stardom – following Rookie of the Month out of the gate in May – has been so immediate, it has surprised even her: “Not even on my radar at all coming in.”

But the precocious power forward has checked in, a 6-foot-3 sponge – “She asks a lot of questions,” Trojans assistant coach Willnett Crockett told me – eager to learn and improve and, heck yes, to compete fiercely against fellow 4s, so many of whom are among the WNBA’s best players.

Iriafen is averaging nearly a double-double – 11.9 points and 8.5 rebounds on 46% shooting – for a surprisingly competitive Mystics team that is in the midst of a youth movement that’s proving more launching pad than incubator, with Citron and Iriafen, this year’s Nos. 3 and 4 picks, becoming the first pair of rookie All-Star teammates since 1999.

There’s wasting little time and wasting none; arriving early, right on time.

Because as women’s basketball is having a time here in the 2020s, Iriafen is among the game’s bright new All-Stars. Not a headliner like Caitlin and JuJu and Paige, perhaps, but she’s on the marquee.

After I heard her say this week that she found fashion and basketball gave her confidence as a tall girl growing up, I looked over my daughter’s shoulder as she flipped through August’s Vogue magazine to see Iriafen staring back at us in a Coach advertisement. Also, in April, she became the first college athlete to sign a sponsorship deal with Skechers, catch her playing in their coral-colored SKX Nexus sneakers. And hey now, she’s an All-Star.

“Kiki has a remarkable presence,” said Jamila Wideman, the Mystics’ general manager who was a popular rookie playing for the Sparks in the WNBA’s inaugural season in 1997. “She’s funny, she’s warm, she has a charisma. And if that is a part of being a star, then she has that.”

Iriafen also had the news of her transfer from Stanford to USC announced to the world via Woj bomb, an Adrian Wojnarowski social media post that landed during a Lakers playoff game: “Just in: Former Stanford F Kiki Iriafen – the potential No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft – has committed to the USC Trojans, she tells ESPN. Iriafen will return to her LA home to team with Juju Watkins on a national title contender for coach Lindsay Gottlieb.”

There were a lot of reasons for the move: a shot at a national championship, playing for Gottlieb, coming home to L.A., no place like it.

And that the change turned out to be a challenge – statistically, Iriafen took a step back, and eventual champion UConn stopped the JuJu-less Trojans in the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament – turned out to be a feature.

Not that collegians these days need additional incentives to transfer, but how about this from Wideman, the rookie GM who was also once a Stanford star: “You got to see her in a couple different situations in college. Her transfer for her last year and her ability to make that transition pretty quickly, to adapt under a gigantic spotlight, I think told you something about her person and her ability to adapt … to me, it spoke something to her bravery.”

They ought to offer degrees in adaptability, because Iriafen would be working toward one of those, too – or teaching the course.

“She’s just done a tremendous job of adapting and adjusting to the pros, the size and physicality,” said Lynne Roberts, who had to game plan for Iriafen in college as Utah’s head coach and now in her first year coaching the Sparks. “Playing against her in college, she was always big and strong and athletic and explosive, and I think she’s just kind of taking that to another level.”

What that means, Iriafen said, is applying her basketball education, “just putting my head down … just being adaptable and using the things that I’ve learned [at USC] to just impact any way I can on the Mystics.”

That’s also how she played at Harvard-Westlake, where she arrived having only started hooping in middle school. But she came with undeniable physical gifts and, importantly, a dream and a drive: “She never let anything get in her way,” said Hearlihy, who retired from coaching in 2024 after 39 years and 839 victories. “The most driven kid I’ve ever coached.”

A quick trip down memory lane in the L.A. Daily News archives documents how Iriafen steadily added to her bag, starting as a head-turning 6-1 freshman who led the team in scoring to super-sophomore gaining acclaim as the sixth-ranked prospect in the country.

As a junior, she was described as a “dominating” “unstoppable” “budding superstar” with soft hands and impressive body control. A mentally tough, elite finisher who loved opening up the game for teammates on the way to a CIF Southern Section Division I crown.

And by the time she was a Stanford-bound senior, averaging 20.9 points and 15.8 rebounds, she’d “added a deadly shooting touch,” acquired “a solid package” of moves, earned recognition as a McDonald’s All-American and, twice, as the Daily News’ Player of the Year.

And this week, she was back, back again in L.A., this time having met and exceeded her initial professional goals. She was playing for the first time against the Sparks and in Crypto.com Arena, where she said she’d been so many times as a fan. A large contingent from the Trojans’ women’s basketball program was on hand Tuesday and DJ Mal-Ski, who also worked Iriafen’s USC games, played those familiar few notes of Drake’s 2018 hit “In My Feelings” – “Kiki, do you love me?” – a couple of times during the game as something of hello again.

The Sparks beat Washington, 99-80, handing the Mystics just their third loss in nine games and holding Iriafen to eight points and eight rebounds. A growth opportunity, she would probably tell you.

Afterward, at home on the road, Iriafen embraced Sparks center Cameron Brink – her former Stanford teammate – and slapped high-fives with fans, signed autographs and stopped for a few photos and selfies before disappearing into the tunnel.

Next stop: the WNBA All-Star Game.

I doubt he’ll ever find those basketball moments particularly nerve-racking.

Not after what he went through on April 24, when the Tesla Cybertruck he was driving crashed into a tree and fire hydrant in Reseda.

After watching his new USC teammates practice on Monday morning at the Galen Center, Arenas – the Los Angeles Daily News 2025 Boys Basketball Player of the Year and son of former NBA star Gilbert Arenas – told a quartet of reporters about the crash that occurred at 4:55 a.m. that morning.

He spoke uninterrupted for more than 18 minutes, as if he might still be processing the events that could have cost him his life and had him in an induced coma.

He talked about panicking when he realized he was locked inside a burning vehicle, about experiencing “fight or flight.”

It makes sense that he felt that way, but to hear him tell it, it sounds like the 18-year-old kept his wits about him, that he exhibited impressive problem-solving instincts as he fought to maintain consciousness and to survive a living nightmare.

That, in addition to feeling grateful and relieved, he ought to feel proud of himself.

The crash occurred, he said, on his way home from the DSTRKT, a gym in Chatsworth, where he’d been toiling, working toward 10,000 made buckets that week. (He was on 7,000 when he left the facility.)

Arenas stressed Monday that he feels totally responsible for the incident: “Whether it was me, another car, a malfunction, I don’t really want to, you know, put anybody else in a situation, whoever made the car, anything. I want to take full responsibility for anything I do.”

But the best he could explain it was that as he drove that morning, “the wheel wasn’t responding.” He said he noticed the keypad and lights turning off, but that none of that worried him much until he was at a stoplight and realized the wheel “wasn’t moving as, like, easy as it should.” So he sped up, he said, to try to put distance between himself and any traffic behind him, to give himself space to pull over. His Life360 app would tell him he reached a speed of 55 mph.

“Next thing,” Arenas said, hand to his chest, “all I remember was feeling pressure.”

He said, initially, he thought he was waking up at home. And then, “I heard crackling noises, like a campfire.”

“It was hot, it felt like a really hot sauna,” he said, describing being unable to see outside of the car because of the smoke.

“OK,” he asked himself, “What did I do? How did I get here?”

Also: “My dad’s gonna kill me.”

“But my main thing,” Arenas said, “was, ‘I don’t think this car can work. Everything is off; the fire is on.’”

He next thought was that he’d get out and find the nearest gas station, call for help, get water, call his dad, “just kind of get this under control. … I wasn’t upside down, I wasn’t sideways, my phone’s still in the [car’s dedicated] pocket, so I was just like, it couldn’t have been that bad.”

And then he realized the door wouldn’t open. And that the car’s lock screen was displayed. “When I saw that … I realized what situation I was in.”

His next steps included taking off his seatbelt and moving to the backseat of the car, checking for cracks or any option for exit. He said he bit his lips and curled his hands tight to try to keep himself awake in intense heat and smoke that was making it difficult to breathe. He found water he’d bought earlier at a gas station and used some of it to “wipe himself down” to try to cool off. He said he’d use the rest of it later, after he’d taken off his clothes, dousing himself when the fire encroached further.

Arenas’ next thought, as he remembered it, was to make as much noise as possible, to yell and scream and bang on windows. He tried to blow the horn, too, he said, but because the vehicle was off, it didn’t sound.

He also said he used his fists and then his feet to try to break the car’s sturdy, “bulletproof” windows, moving from the front driver’s side window to the windshield, which seemed to crack at about the same time he started to hear thudding noises outside the car. It was water from the hydrant, but not knowing he’d hit one, Arenas said, “I thought it was raining.”

He positioned himself so if he passed out again, he’d fall into the backseat, where there was plenty of leg space and, Arenas figured, “airspace.”

“All I remember, just passing out into the backseat, my legs in the air,” he said. “And then, thankfully, somebody was on the outside working on [getting into the car] at the same time … and as they took off the window, they saw my leg and they touched it, and I kind of went back up, and I just went for it.

“Then, after that, all I kind of remember is hitting the floor and then feeling like a sensation of just cooling my body … like a river, because there was so much water.

“Next thing I know, I remember seeing lights. I remember looking at a ceiling full of lights and somebody holding my arm. I think that was the first hospital. And then the next one, I remember I woke up and I couldn’t speak,” said Arenas, who was in the hospital for six days.

“And my first thought process waking up was, ‘Did I hit somebody?’”

He did not, thankfully.

But he did hit on several realizations, including when he came home to so many flowers and “smiles on smiles on smiles” how very loved he is. By family and friends, teammates and neighbors he never even knew.

“I appreciate a lot,” Arenas added. “I appreciate more than what I thought. I appreciate everybody around. I’m appreciative for just somebody randomly helping me.”

That part – that part especially. After strangers helped save his life, he wants to be able to help do the same for others.

That is why Alijah – a personable, charming guy who introduces himself to everyone he meets with a handshake and who clearly shares not only his podcasting dad’s deep bag of basketball skills but Gilbert’s gift of gab – said he’s so willing to share his story as he begins this college chapter of his career.

Before he begins practicing with the Trojans, the five-star McDonald’s All-American has a few more academic boxes to check after graduating early from Chatsworth High School.

As he picked USC, eschewing bigger-name college programs like Arizona and Louisville, Kansas and Kentucky, Arenas chose to play his high school ball at Chatsworth, leading the Chancellors to two consecutive CIF State SoCal Regional titles and needing only three seasons to become the first player in the L.A. City Section to reach the 3,000-point mark.

Now he said he’s eager to move forward, to work at USC – and to share, whoever needs to hear it.

“That is a memory for me to help somebody else,” Alijah said. “You know, I’m still here to help somebody else. I’m really glad God gave me a chance to help another person that is probably going through way worse than what I’m going through right now.”

Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Eric Harmon heard arguments in plaintiff Lloyd Lake’s petition, briefly took the issues under submission and issued his final ruling later in the day Wednesday. According to Lake’s petition, arbitrator Jeffrey G. Benz on April 12 awarded him $500,000, plus $764,640 in attorneys’ fees and about $116,780 in costs.

Bush’s attorneys argued that the award should be vacated, saying the amount exceeded Benz’s authority.

Bush, now 40, resolved the first suit in 2010 with Lake, who claimed he provided Bush with cash and other benefits while Bush played for the Trojans in 2004 and 2005. Lake’s initial case alleged breach of contract.

Lake, along with his parents — Roy and Barbara Gunner, who are both in their 80s — then sued Bush again in Van Nuys Superior court in February 2023, this time for defamation. Bush filed a motion to compel arbitration of the second suit, abiding by what he said were the terms of the accord in the first suit requiring that an arbitrator and not a jury decide any future claims.

In June 2024, Judge Valerie Salkin ruled in Bush’s favor, finding that Lake’s second suit claims were “plainly covered by the settlement’s broad arbitration provision.”

But the judge also ruled that Lake’s parents’ part of the case should go before a jury.

The plaintiffs’ attorneys argued in their court papers that the arbitration clause only applied to contractual disputes. The same lawyers attached to their court papers an image of two sides of a wall separating a gate outside the Gunner home.

On one side of the wall someone used spray paint to scrawl “187,” possibly referring to murder under the state Penal Code, while the other side of the walls is defaced to state, “Help Reggie Bush Get His Trophy Back (epithet) Crook.”

The plaintiffs’ attorneys blamed the graffiti on “unknown bad actors on behalf of or at the direction of Bush criminal” and they further state in their court papers that Bush “created a firestorm of vitriol that now has engulfed Lake’s parents.”

The current suit alleges Bush defamed Lake and the Gunners with remarks he made on YouTube in September 2023 and on Twitter three months later. In the YouTube interview, Bush allegedly said, among other things, that Lake was trying to blackmail him and that Lake had a police record as long as a Cheesecake Factory menu. Both statements are untrue, according to the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ court papers.

On Twitter, Bush allegedly referred to Lake as a “convicted felon who was in prison for rape,” an allegation the plaintiffs’ attorneys state in their court papers was “false and without any substance.”

Lake and the Gunners have suffered severe emotional distress and financial harm, the current suit states.

In addition to winning the 2005 Heisman Trophy, Bush also won the 2005 Doak Walker and Walter Camp awards.

South Florida ran a brilliant 4×400-meter relay to close the NCAA men’s outdoor track and field championships, leaving USC and Texas A&M tied for the team title.

The Trojans, who also won the indoor title earlier this year, hadn’t won an outdoor title in 49 years. USC and Texas A&M both finished with 41 points on Friday, one ahead of Arkansas, with the Trojans becoming just the third team ever to win the indoor and outdoor national championships in the same year.

The team result came after a late surge by the USF anchor to edge Texas A&M in the final race, winning in 3 minutes, 42 seconds. Arkansas was third with the Trojans a disappointing eighth to earn just one team point. The Aggies earned eight points in the relay – a win would have been worth 10 points – and the Razorbacks got six.

Arkansas protested after the race that a USF runner hindered a Razorback, but the protest was denied. If successful, Texas A&M would have won the title and Arkansas and USC would have tied for second.

USC, which scored all of its points in seven events on Friday, won its first outdoor track and field title since 1976 and now has 27 outdoor titles, more than double the next program. USC also became the first Big Ten program to win the outdoor team title since Minnesota in 1948.

The Trojans won the team title without winning any individual events, just like they did for the indoor title earlier this year. The indoor meet also required waiting for the results of an unsuccessful Arkansas protest in the 4×400 relay before USC could celebrate.

“It is just an awesome feeling for the program, the University, the USC community, all of our fans and these student-athletes. They worked their butts off,” USC director of track & field Quincy Watts said. “I am just so proud of them.”

The Trojans’ march to the title began with sophomore Racquil Broderick breaking his school discus record with a throw of 207 feet, 8 inches to place fourth, securing USC’s first five points of the two-day meet. Broderick, who placed second as a freshman, earned first-team All-America honors for the second time.

The 4×100 relay team of senior Travis Williams, junior Max Thomas, graduate transfer Taylor Banks and junior transfer Garrett Kaalund placed second with a time of 38.46 seconds. The second-fastest time in program history was worth another eight points in the team competition.

Thomas then used a strong finish to place second in the 100 with a time of 10.10 (+0.7), out-leaning the third-place finisher by 0.001 seconds. Thomas gave USC its best finish in the event since Andre DeGrasse won the NCAA title in 2015.

Junior William Jones took second in the 400 with a time of 45.53 for another eight points that gave USC a meet best 29 points after 14 of the 21 events. Jones’ effort was the best finish by a Trojan since Michael Norman won the title in 2018 in a record-setting 43.61.

Senior Johnny Brackins Jr. placed seventh in the 400 hurdles with a time of 50.15 for two more points. After 18 events, USC had 31 points and was two behind Texas A&M for the lead.

Kaalund then placed third in the 200 at 19.96 and Thomas took sixth at 20.23, adding nine points that moved the Trojans into first place with 40 points, five ahead of Auburn, six ahead of Arkansas and seven ahead of the Aggies with the 5,000 and the 4×400 relay remaining.

Kaalund’s finish was USC’s best showing in the 200 since DeGrasse won the title in 2015.

USC ran a 4×400 team of junior Jacob Andrews, Thomas, junior Jaelen Knox and Jones, and they did just enough to secure a share of the team title, finishing eighth with a time of 3:03.18 despite a couple of balky exchanges.

“It is a journey and throughout the journey you are going to have hurdles and adversity,” Watts said. “We had some adversity when one of our top runners (Kaalund) was having some issues with his hamstring (leaving him unavailable for the 4×400). I gathered everybody that was here with the men’s team and we surrounded Garrett while he was on the training table. We let him know we were going to win the team title for him. We wanted to look him in the eye and let him know we had his back. Garrett has been there for us all year. Just a tremendous team with tremendous character as human beings.”

In other notable performances for USC, graduate transfer Jaren Holmes placed 11th in the triple jump with a top mark of 51-8¼ (+0.6), good enough for second-team All-America honors in the event.

Junior Elias Gerald placed 12th in the high jump with a best clearance of 7-0½, also earning second-team All-America honors.

The women’s title will be decided Saturday at Hayward Field on the Oregon campus.

Sam Whitmarsh of Texas A&M, runner-up a year ago, beat indoor champion Matthew Erickson of Oregon to capture the 800 in 1:45.86, the second-fastest in school history.

Jordan Anthony of Arkansas, the NCAA champion in the indoor 60, added an outdoor title, winning the 100 in 10.07 from Lane 9.

Ja’Kobe Tharp, who won the 60 hurdles at the indoor championships for Auburn, added the 110 hurdles title to his resume with a personal-best time of 13.05. Tharp ran the fifth-fastest time in NCAA history, only 0.07 off of Grant Holloway’s record.

Auburn also won the 400 relay in a time of 38.33.

Samujel Ogazi of Alabama raced to a dominant win in the 400 with a time of 44.84, more than six-tenths faster than the runner-up. The sophomore, who made the Olympic final in Paris, became the first Nigerian athlete to win the 400 NCAA title in 26 years.

James Corrigan of BYU, a 2024 Olympian, won the 3,000 steeplechase in 8:16.41, grabbing the lead at the last water jump. His time is the fourth fastest in college history.

Nathan Green of Washington, the 2023 champion, won the 1,500 meters in 3:47.26 with the top 11 finishing within 0.68 of Green.

Brian Masau on Oklahoma State added the outdoor title in the 5,000 to the indoor title he won earlier this year, finishing in 13:20.59.

Ezekiel Nathaniel of Baylor lowered his Nigerian record to 47.49 in the 400 hurdles, the second-fastest time in the world this year.

Carli Makarawu of Kentucky took the 400 in 19.84 seconds, a Zimbabwe national record, edging countryman Makanakaishe Charamba of Auburn, who ran 19.92.

Oklahoma’s Ralford Mullings, who returned to the championship for the second time in his career, took the discus title by launching a meet-record and person-best 227 feet, 4 inches.

Brandon Green Jr. and Floyd Whitaker gave Oklahoma a 1-2 finish in the triple jump with Green soaring 55-2 to win by more than a foot. Green led from the first jump and had it wrapped up after five rounds and then had his best leap to end it.

Arvesta Troupe of Mississippi cleared 7-5¼ to win the high jump.

What could possibly go wrong?

That depends. If you are an Olympic sport athlete, or you play at a mid-major or low-major school that doesn’t exactly reap those profits, or your sport is one that is suddenly on the chopping block thanks to the legally mandated commitments that were part of last week’s $2.85 billion settlement of the House v. NCAA lawsuit, there is no guarantee the gravy train will be stopping at your dorm.

The $2.85 billion, incidentally, is separate from the profit-sharing component. That’s the amount in damages that will go to past players, primarily football and men’s and women’s basketball players, over the next 10 years.

Current players will share a pool with a $20.5 million limit per university, over and above scholarships, with the amount increasing in future years. The breakdown is generally 75% of that amount to football players, 15% to men’s basketball players, 5% to women’s basketball players and 5% to other athletes. (Title IX challenges, anyone?)

And yes, there will almost certainly be fallout.

The major conferences, defendants in the lawsuit – including the reconstituted Pac-12, with holdovers Oregon State and Washington State joined by six teams in the summer of 2026 – are locked into the profit sharing agreement. Beyond that, individual institutions can either opt in or opt out and stay within the old rules, and you can just imagine where the competitive advantages will fall in that case.

“The schools that are not required to opt in have the benefit of waiting a year and seeing how this plays out, learning from mistakes that are made by those who’ve been required to do it from day one, and then (can) make a decision next year about whether or not they want to opt in,” said Victoria Jackson, an associate professor at Arizona State and sports historian.

So what happens if your program can’t afford to opt in and finds itself looking up at the programs who do?

This process has pretty much completed the de-fanging of the NCAA, which basically will run tournaments and disburse profits from the March Madness TV contract and little else. It has no role in the college football playoff, and what once was a robust enforcement mechanism that zealously pursued (and occasionally caught) entities who were offering under-the-table money now has little to do.

According to The Associated Press, 153 NCAA rules were eliminated to allow schools to provide direct benefits to athletes under the settlement.

The new system is going to be run by something called the College Sports Commission with assistance from Deloitte’s NIL GO clearinghouse, which will inspect individual name/image/likeness (NIL) deals of $600 or more to make sure they’re actually fair market value and not play-for-pay mechanisms.

Supposedly, the CSC has enforcement power; to enforce what, we don’t know. That seems to be the last vestige of the old college athletics mindset that someone, somewhere is getting an unfair advantage – and, indeed, it could lead to influential people attempting to bypass the system. Anyone for the old days of suitcases and FedEx envelopes full of cash?

That, Jackson said, reflects “what a stupid business this all is, and also a refusal to just admit that college football at the top of the pyramid is professional sports. Because they refuse to just outright professionalize college football, they’re dragging all of the (other) sports into this crappier, bad, far from optimized business model.

“… What are you when you’re a professional track and field athlete? You’re funding yourself through prize money and endorsement contracts and appearance fees if you’re among the top tier. And you don’t have to report your third-party NIL deals with USA Track and Field or the (U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee). This idea that everything is going to have to be run (through the clearinghouse) feels wrong, and the continuing of the policing of athletes that’s unnecessary.”

With the amount of change that has already taken place, her vision of spinning off football from college athletic departments makes sense: Keep the tradition and emotion and history, but with a different business model and, potentially, additional revenue streams.

“Football shouldn’t be supporting those other things,” she said. “Or if football is, let’s make sure it’s the industry that’s doing it, not the football players’ deserved cut of that money.”

Jackson talked of a conversation with then-UCLA quarterback Chase Griffin at a House subcommittee hearing, and of how he said he was proud that his sport helped support, for example, the gymnastics team on campus.

“And I’m like, why are we expecting Chase Griffin to pay for this?” she said.

Another possible trend to come out of this settlement: Attrition, especially among the Olympic sports – a euphemism for what used to be called “non-revenue” sports, but accurate given the college system’s outsized importance to Olympic teams here and elsewhere. Grand Canyon eliminated men’s volleyball a few weeks ago, and other campuses might either eliminate whole teams or trim roster sizes.

Interestingly, Jackson said she was on a panel with NCAA president Charlie Baker a few weeks ago. He told her that after attending the NCAA men’s swimming and diving championships last spring and seeing the success of college athletes last summer in Paris, “We should have been marketing the NCAA national championships as a preview of the Olympic Games.”

Such irony. The NCAA is only decades behind the Olympic movement in scrapping amateurism.

jalexander@scng.com

Conference commissioners lauded a judge’s approval of a $2.8 billion antitrust lawsuit settlement as a means for bringing stability and fairness to an out-of-control college athletics industry but acknowledged there would be growing pains in implementing its terms.

In a 30-minute virtual news conference on Monday, commissioners of the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC renewed their call for congressional action to supplement and even codify the settlement and emphasized that cooperation at every level of college sports would be necessary to make it work.

They said it was too early to address how violators of rules surrounding revenue sharing and name, image and likeness (NIL) agreements would be punished and noted newly hired College Sports Commission CEO Bryan Seeley would play a major role in determining penalties.

The new era of college athletics has arrived after U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken gave final approval on Friday night to what’s known as House vs. NCAA. Beginning July 1, each school can share up to about $20.5 million with their athletes – those payments will be in addition to scholarships and other benefits the athletes already receive. Beginning June 7, athletes have to report third-party NIL deals of $600 or more to the College Sports Commission, which will analyze them to make sure they pay appropriate “market value” for the services being provided by athletes.

Some of the topics addressed Monday:

Binding conferences to terms

The conferences drafted a document that would bind institutions to enforcement policies even if their state laws are contradictory. It would require schools to waive their right to pursue legal challenges against the CSC. It also would exempt the commission from lawsuits from member schools over enforcement decisions, instead offering arbitration as the main settlement option.

Consequences for not signing the agreement would include risking the loss of league membership and participation against other teams from the Power Four conferences.

Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark said the document remains a work in progress but that he’s gotten no pushback from his schools.

“I look to get that executed here in short order,” he said, “and know it will be very necessary for all the conferences to execute as well.”

Directives on revenue sharing

There has been no directive given to individual schools on how to determine the allocation of revenue-sharing payments, commissioners said. It’s widely acknowledged that athletes in football and basketball are expected to receive the majority of the money.

“I know for all five of us no one is forgetting about their Olympic sports and continuing to make sure we’ve invested a high level for all of our sports,” ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said.

College Sports Commission CEO

The commissioners said Seeley, as MLB executive vice president of legal and operations, was uniquely qualified to lead the CSC, which is charged with making sure schools adhere to the rules.

“Culture doesn’t change overnight,” Seeley told The Athletic over the weekend. “I don’t expect that to happen overnight, but I do think that the schools that have signed on to the settlement want rules and want rules to be enforced. Otherwise they wouldn’t have signed on to the settlement. I think student-athletes want a different system. So I think there is a desire for rules enforcement. There’s a desire for transparency.”

Sankey said Seeley is well-versed in areas of implementation, development and adjustment of rules and in NIL disputes requiring arbitration.

Yormark said: “You want people not to run away from a situation but to run to a situation. He ran here, and he’s very passionate to make a difference and to course correct what’s been going on in the industry.”

Skepticism about enforcement

Deloitte’s “NIL Go” program and LBI Software will track NIL deals and revenue-sharing contracts, and the commissioners shot down skepticism about the ability of those tools to enforce terms of the settlement. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said football and basketball coaches he spoke with in February were unanimous in wanting regulation. Sankey said he has asked the same question at every level – including up to the university presidents.

“If you want an unregulated, open system, just raise your hand and let me know,” Sankey said. “And universally, the answer is, ‘No, we want oversight. We want guardrails. We want structure.’ Those individuals don’t have the luxury to just say that in meeting rooms, period. They don’t have the luxury to just be anonymous sources. They have a responsibility to make what they’ve sought – what they’ve asked for – to make it work.”

Congressional action

NCAA president Charlie Baker has been pushing Congress for a limited antitrust exemption that would protect college sports from another series of lawsuits, and the commissioners want a uniform federal NIL law that would supersede wide-ranging state laws.

“We’re not going to have Final Fours and College Football Playoffs and College World Series with 50 different standards,” Sankey said, “so that’s a starting point.”

Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti said the willingness of administrators to modernize the college athletics model should prompt federal lawmakers to move on codifying the settlement.

Sankey’s meeting with Trump

Sankey confirmed a Yahoo Sports report that he and Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua played golf with President Donald Trump on Sunday. Sankey said he appreciates Trump’s interest in college sports and that it was helpful to share perspectives on the path forward. Trump reportedly considered a presidential commission on college sports earlier this year.

Sankey declined to disclose details of their talks.

“I think those are best left for the moment on the golf course,” he said.

Even with a multitude of questions still looming, Phillips said college athletics is in a “much better place” than it was 48 hours ago, before the settlement was approved.

“What’s not debatable is that this new model does bring stability and fairness to student-athletes in college sports,” Phillips said. “We’ve been in an unregulated environment with no rules and no enforcement. It has paralyzed the NCAA in Indianapolis, and we’re responsible for certainly some of that. We’re now going to have a foundation and structure laying out those rules. The new structure provides our student-athletes with more opportunities and benefits than ever before.”

A federal judge signed off on arguably the biggest change in the history of college sports Friday, clearing the way for schools to begin paying their athletes millions as soon as next month as the multibillion-dollar industry shreds the last vestiges of the amateur model that defined it for more than a century.

Nearly five years after Arizona State swimmer Grant House sued the NCAA and its five biggest conferences to lift restrictions on revenue sharing, U.S. Judge Claudia Wilken approved the final proposal that had been hung up on roster limits, just one of many changes ahead amid concerns that thousands of walk-on athletes will lose their chance to play college sports.

The sweeping terms of the so-called House settlement include approval for each school to share up to $20.5 million with athletes over the next year and $2.7 billion that will be paid over the next decade to thousands of former players who were barred from that revenue for years. These new payments are in addition to scholarships and other benefits the athletes already receive.

One of the lead plaintiff attorneys, Steve Berman, called Friday’s news “a fantastic win for hundreds of thousands of college athletes.”

The agreement brings a seismic shift to hundreds of schools that were forced to reckon with the reality that their players are the ones producing the billions in TV and other revenue, mostly through football and basketball, that keep this machine humming.

The scope of the changes – some have already begun – is difficult to overstate. The professionalization of college athletics will be seen in the high-stakes and expensive recruitment of stars on their way to the NFL and NBA, and they will be felt by athletes whose schools have decided to pare their programs. The agreement will resonate in nearly every one of the NCAA’s 1,100 member schools boasting nearly 500,000 athletes.

NCAA President Charlie Baker said the deal “opens a pathway to begin stabilizing college sports.”

The road to a settlement

Wilken’s ruling comes 11 years after she dealt the first significant blow to the NCAA ideal of amateurism. Then, she ruled in favor of former UCLA basketball player Ed O’Bannon and others seeking a way to earn money from the use of their name, image and likeness (NIL) – a term that is now as common in college sports as “March Madness” or “Roll Tide.”

It was just four years ago that the NCAA cleared the way for NIL money to start flowing, but the changes coming are even bigger.

Wilken granted preliminary approval to the settlement last October. That sent colleges scurrying to determine not only how they were going to afford the payments, but how to regulate an industry that also allows players to cut deals with third parties so long as they are deemed compliant by a newly formed enforcement group that will be run by auditors at Deloitte.

The agreement takes a big chunk of oversight away from the NCAA and puts it in the hands of the four biggest conferences. The ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC hold most of the power and decision-making heft, especially when it comes to the College Football Playoff, which is the most significant financial driver in the industry and is not under the NCAA umbrella like the March Madness tournaments are.

Roster limits held things up

The deal looked ready to go, but Wilken put a halt to it this spring after listening to a number of players who had lost their spots because of newly imposed roster limits being placed on teams.

The limits were part of a trade-off that allowed the schools to offer scholarships to everyone on the roster, instead of only a fraction, as has been the case for decades. Schools started cutting walk-ons in anticipation of the deal being approved.

Wilken asked for a solution and, after weeks, the parties decided to let anyone cut from a roster – now termed a “Designated Student-Athlete” – return to their old school or play for a new one without counting against the new limit.

Wilken ultimately agreed, going point-by-point through the objectors’ arguments to explain why they didn’t hold up. The main point pushed by the parties was that those roster spots were never guaranteed in the first place.

“The modifications provide Designated Student-Athletes with what they had prior to the roster limits provisions being implemented, which was the opportunity to be on a roster at the discretion of a Division I school,” Wilken wrote.

Her decision, however, took nearly a month to write, leaving the schools and conferences in limbo – unsure if the plans they had been making for months, really years, would go into play.

“It remains to be seen how this will impact the future of inter-collegiate athletics – but as we continue to evolve, Carolina remains committed to providing outstanding experiences and broad-based programming to student-athletes,” North Carolina athletic director Bubba Cunningham said.

Winners and losers

The list of winners and losers is long and, in some cases, hard to tease out.

A rough guide of winners would include football and basketball stars at the biggest schools, which will devote much of their bankroll to signing and retaining them. For instance, Michigan quarterback Bryce Underwood’s NIL deal is reportedly worth between $10.5 million and $12 million.

Losers, despite Wilken’s ruling, figure to be at least some of the walk-ons and partial scholarship athletes whose spots are gone.

Also in limbo are the Olympic sports many of those athletes play and that serve as the main pipeline for a U.S. team that has won the most medals at every Olympics since the downfall of the Soviet Union.

All this is a price worth paying, according to the attorneys who crafted the settlement and argue they delivered exactly what they were asked for: an attempt to put more money in the pockets of the players whose sweat and toil keep people watching from the start of football season through March Madness and the College World Series in June.

What the settlement does not solve is the threat of further litigation.

Though this deal brings some uniformity to the rules, states still have separate laws regarding how NIL can be doled out, which could lead to legal challenges. Baker has been consistent in pushing for federal legislation that would put college sports under one rulebook and, if he has his way, provide some form of antitrust protection to prevent the new model from being disrupted again.

Gavin Turley and Trent Caraway had two of Oregon State’s four home runs as the eighth-seeded Beavers shut out the Trojans, 9-0, on Monday afternoon to clinch the four-team regional. OSU (45-13-1), which dropped its opener to Saint Mary’s on Friday, won four games in three days to advance to a best-of-three super regional against No. 9 Florida State (41-14) that begins Friday in Corvallis.

Oregon State – which outscored its opponents 47-6 after its Friday loss – forced Monday’s winner-take-all game by hammering USC, 14-1, on Sunday night.

Turley and Caraway also homered in Sunday night’s victory over the Trojans. Turley hit three homers in the regional and upped his OSU career postseason home run record to seven. Caraway’s five home runs in the regional are a record for a single postseason.

This time, three OSU pitchers held USC (37-23) to three hits to complement the homer-happy offense.

James DeCremer (3-0), making just his second start of the season, allowed two hits and two walks with six strikeouts over five innings to set the tone for the Beavers. Eric Segura following with three scoreless innings and Laif Palmer closed it out. The defense turned five double plays before a record Goss Stadium crowd of 4,383.

The last time Oregon State had a postseason shutout was 2018, when the Beavers beat Arkansas, 5-0, to win the national championship.

Turley also had an RBI single in the first inning and his home in the third came after Aiva Arquette drilled a two-run homer. Jacob Krieg, the No. 9 hitter, had a three-run blast in the eighth inning to wrap it up. It was the Beavers’ 15th home run of the regional.

Caden Hunter (6-6), the first of five pitchers for USC (37-23) allowed five runs on four hits in three innings.

USC, which received one of the last four at-large spots in the 64-team NCAA field, was making its first regional appearance since 2015 and seeking its first super regional berth since 2005. The Trojans dominated TCU in their opener, then defeated Saint Mary’s on Saturday night before dropping the two games to the Beavers.

OSU, which is headed to the super regionals for the third time in four years, has three national titles (2006, 2007 and 2018) and six CWS appearances since 2005.

USC was positioned to do the same but was routed by host Oregon State in the Corvallis Regional on Sunday night, setting up a winner-take-all rematch between the Trojans and the Beavers on Monday at 3 p.m.

In Westwood, Mulivai Levu hit a three-run home run, Dean West and Payton Brennan added two RBIs apiece and UCLA jumped to a big lead and then held on to beat UCI at Jackie Robinson Stadium.

UCLA (45-16) clinched its first trip to the super regionals since 2019. The 15th-seeded Bruins will host UT-San Antonio, which upset No. 2 seed Texas to win its regional, in a best-of-three series next weekend.

UCI (43-17) had defeated Arizona State, 11-6, in an elimination game earlier Sunday. The Anteaters made back-to-back NCAA tournament appearances for the first time since they went to six straight tourneys from 2006-11.

Roman Martin’s RBI single off Finnegan Wall (0-1) in the first inning gave UCLA a 1-0 lead and the Bruins led the rest of the way. Cashel Dugger hit a single in the second that drove in Brennan, who doubled to lead off the inning, and then scored on a sacrifice fly by Roch Cholowsky to make it 3-0.

Dugger and Phoenix Call drew back-to-back walks to lead off the fourth and West followed with a bunt single to load the bases. Dugger scored on another sacrifice fly by Cholowsky and, after Levu’s homer, Brennan added a sacrifice fly to make it 8-0.

James Castagnola and Alonso Reyes each had an RBI for the Anteaters in the fourth, Anthony Martinez hit a two-run double in the fifth and Reyes hit a lead-off home in the sixth to cap the scoring.

Chris Grothues (3-1) came on in relief of starter Wylan Moss with one out and the bases loaded in the fourth. Grothues got Reyes to groundout, driving in Martinez, and struck out Blake Penso to limit the damage. Easton Hawk pitched a 1-2-3 ninth for his sixth save of the season.

In the Corvallis (Ore.) regional …

Oregon State 14, USC 1: Trent Caraway had a double, a home run and four RBIs and Gavin Turley also hit a homer as the No. 8 seed Beavers rolled to an easy win.

The winner of Monday’s game between USC (37-22) and Oregon State (44-13-1) advances to a super regional against No. 9 seed Florida State, which went unbeaten in its regional.

The Beavers – who lost, 6-4, to Saint Mary’s in their opener on Friday, then won games Saturday against TCU and earlier Sunday against Saint Mary’s, avenging their opening-round loss by beating the Gaels, 20-3 – have won three consecutive elimination games.

Oregon State starter Wyatt Queen gave up back-to-back singles to lead off the fifth, walked Ethan Hedges to load the bases and struck out Bryce Grudzielanek before Kellan Oakes came on and struck out Adrian Lopez looking and then got Abbrie Covarrubias swinging to end the threat. Oakes (3-0) had four strikeouts in 1⅔ innings before Zach Kmatz struck out seven across three scoreless innings for his first save of the season.

Wilson Weber and Caraway led off the second with back-to-back singles before a sacrifice bunt by AJ Singer moved both runners into scoring position. Weber scored on a bunt single by Canon Reeder, who was thrown out at second on a bunt by Dallas Macias, who reached on a fielder’s choice to drive in Caraway. Tyce Peteron – who finished with four hits – had an RBI single up the middle. Macias scored on a sacrifice bunt by Easton Talt to make it 4-0.

Maximo Martinez had an RBI single in the second for USC, which received one of the last four at-large berths in the 64-team tournament.

Brayden Dowd led off the first with a single but was thrown out at home when Hedges followed with a double. Dowd appeared to be shaken up after a collision at the plate and left the game in the second inning.

UC Irvine 11, Arizona State 6: Chase Call hit two of UCI’s five home runs in a Sunday afternoon elimination game victory over ASU. Alonso Reyes, Jacob McCombs and James Castagnola also went deep for UC Irvine.

Call and Reyes hit two-run home runs in a four-run fourth inning that gave the Anteaters a 6-1 lead.

UCI starter Ryder Brooks had a 7-2 lead heading to the bottom of the sixth but was pulled after allowing a two-run double by Brandon Compton. Ricky Ojeda replaced Brooks and gave up an RBI double by Beckett Zavorek to make it 7-5. Brooks was charged with five runs.

The Anteaters responded in the top of the seventh, scoring four runs that included a two-run home run by Castagnola.

Brooks (7-3) got the win. Ojeda and David Utagawa combined to allow one run in 3⅔ innings.

Derek Schaefer (3-1) allowed five runs in three-plus innings for the Sun Devils (36-24).

Roman Martin belted a grand slam in a seven-run second inning and high-scoring UCLA rolled past Arizona State, 11-5, on Saturday night at Jackie Robinson Stadium to reach the championship round of the Los Angeles Regional.

The Bruins (44-16) added two runs in the third. Dean West doubled to right center for one run and Roch Cholowsky drove in West with a single up the middle. UCLA added single runs in the fifth and eighth innings.

The Bruins, who crushed Fresno State, 19-4, on Friday, got their 11 runs on 12 hits, three hits coming from Payton Brennan.

UCLA awaits the winner of Sunday’s 3 p.m. elimination game between Arizona State (36-23) and UC Irvine (42-16). The winner of that game would need to beat UCLA later on Sunday (approximately 7 p.m.) and again on Monday to win the four-team regional.

UCLA would advance to a best-of-three super regional with one win either Sunday or Monday.

Arizona State got two RBIs from Brody Briggs.

Ian May (7-3) pitched five innings and allowed three runs, two earned, in relief of starter Landon Stump.

Jack Martinez (6-4) gave up seven runs in the first 1⅔ innings for ASU.

UCLA has seven regional championships and won the College World Series in 2013.

ASU has a storied history in college baseball with 20 CWS appearances and five national championships, the last in 1981.

In the Corvallis (Ore.) Regional …

USC 6, Saint Mary’s 4: Ethan Hedges hit two solo home runs and USC defeated Saint Mary’s on Saturday night to reach the championship round.

Hedges gave the Trojans (37-21) a 1-0 lead with a one-out home run in the bottom of the first inning.

Saint Mary’s (36-25) went ahead on a two-run home run by Diego Castellanos in the second inning. The Gaels made it 3-1 when Aide Taurek homered to lead off the fourth.

USC tied it in the bottom of the inning when Augie Lopez blasted a two-run homer to right-center field and Hedges’ one-out homer in the fifth gave the Trojans the lead for good.

Richard Tejeda delivered an RBI single in the sixth for a 5-3 lead.

Cody Kashimoto’s sacrifice fly in the eighth got the Gaels within 5-4 but Maximo Martinez got the run back for USC with an RBI-single in the bottom of the inning.

USC’s Caden Hunter pitched a 1-2-3 ninth for his first save of the season. Starter Mason Edwards (3-0) got the win, allowing three runs in 5⅓ innings.

John Damozonio (4-3) took the loss for Saint Mary’s (36-25).

USC (37-21) advances to the championship round, a win away from the super regionals. Saint Mary’s will play an elimination game against regional host Oregon State (42-13-1) on Sunday at 3 p.m. with the winner needing to beat USC later on Sunday (approximately 7 p.m.) and again on Monday to win the four-team regional.

USC would advance to a super regional with one win either Sunday or Monday.