Jennifer DeGraaf

Biography

Jennifer DeGraaf enters her fourth season with USC Upstate women’s basketball in 2025-26. During the 2024-25 campaign, she helped develop Big South Conference Freshman of the Year Cassie Gallagher—also an Honorable Mention All-Big South and Big South All-Freshman Team selection—and Big South All-Freshman Team honoree Gwen Jenkins. Between the two players, Upstate captured eight of a possible 15 Big South Freshman of the Week honors. She also helped mold the Big South’s top rebounding unit, helping the Spartans lead the league in rebounding margin, defensive rebounds per game, and rebounds per game while tutoring the conference’s top individual rebounder Rebekah Gordon. Following the season, DeGraaf was selected to the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association Thirty Under 30. DeGraaf’s second season with the Spartans saw Upstate qualify for its highest level of postseason basketball in the Division I era (2007-pres.), earning a bid to the 2024 WNIT. The bid followed the program’s best regular season finish in the D1 era, finishing second in the Big South standings and earning the No. 2 seed in the Big South Women’s Basketball Championship. The Spartans advanced to the semifinal round of the Championship for the first time in program history. She tutored Big South Defensive Player of the Year Trinity Johnson—the program’s first conference Defensive Player of the Year, helping her surpass the 1,000 point, 500 rebound, and 500 assists barriers, becoming the second player in Big Sou