Greetings, faithful readers of this space. You don’t know me. I’m Mike Strange, a retired sportswriter, who was once, in a galaxy far, far away, a college fraternity brother of David, your usual host. David asked me to step in for a week while he is tasked with a secret mission for a clandestine branch of our government. Or is having eye surgery. I forget which.
Europeans Invade American College Basketball
You might have noticed the World Cup is going on. Athletes from Uruguay to Uzbekistan, from New Zealand to Norway, have invaded our shores. Well, guess what – it’s nothing new.
I’ll share my thoughts on one aspect of college basketball, a subject I know from 40 years of sitting on press row in gyms from Madison Square Garden to Starkville, Miss., to Chiasso, Switzerland.
Let’s start in Chiasso
In 1997, the team I covered for 34 years, the University of Tennessee men’s basketball team, went on a summer exhibition tour to France and Italy and finished with a tournament in Chiasso, Switzerland. The opponents were European pro teams gearing up for their season. In those halcyon days, newspapers like mine in Knoxville would foot the bill to send a reporter along. Thus, I got a first-hand look at the considerable skills of Euro players from France, Italy and even Croatia. These days, you and I wouldn’t have to go to Europe to eyeball these international practitioners of the game. They come to us. In droves.
Scan college basketball rosters and chances are you’ll find at least one international player on each
Via my ESPN+ subscription, I can watch virtually any college game. The other night, the University of New Hampshire had players on the court at various moments from Greece, Poland, Italy, and Egypt.
That’s no anomaly
The University of Tennessee-Martin – located in a corner of rural upper west Tennessee – has started a lineup of five Europeans. Pity the radio play-by-play guy. It used to be Jenkins passes to York, who’s fouled by Stevens. Now it’s, “Radakovic gets the rebound, finds Deniusas with the outlet pass. Petkovski is open on the wing but Khryapa threads the needle to Bukumirovic in the paint for a layup.’’ Think I’m making this up? Google the UT-Martin roster.
Why and when did this come to pass?
International athletes have come to U.S. colleges for decades in the Olympic sports. Swimmers from Brazil, tennis aces from Austria, shot-putters from Iceland. Distance runners from every corner of Africa. A college scholarship with good training facilities was the draw.
Basketball was another story
Most countries have their own professional leagues with company-branded teams. Even, for example, the Philippine Islands, has a league. The players draw a salary and often housing. It was a better payday than a college scholarship in Missouri.
Elite internationals could find a slot on an NBA roster of professionals
Think Dirk Nowitzki from Germany, who arrived in 1998. Or Manu Ginobili from Argentina, a 1999 draft pick. In 2023, Victor Wembanyama from France was the first pick of the NBA draft. But “Wemby” is 7 feet, 4 inches tall. If he were 6-foot-4, he’d likely land at a college.
The first European college hoopster was a Pole, Tadeusz “Teddy” Kuczynski
He played for the University of San Francisco in the 1930s. The first European to play in NCAA Division 1 basketball was Croatia’s Krešimir “Krešo” Ćosić. He played for Brigham Young University in the early 1970s, where he was the first non-American player to be awarded All-American Honors by the United Press International. Ćosić also holds the distinction of being the first basketball player in the world to play all five positions. Following his career in college and the pros, he served as a diplomat at the Croatian Embassy in Washington, D.C.
Here’s how sportswriter Dick Harmon described Krešimir Ćosić, one of BYU’s All-Time Top Ten Players
“He galloped down the court, a kind of lanky elongated giraffe, handling the ball like a guard. He could shoot from downtown in the days there was no 3-point line. He loved to lead the fast break. He passed like a 6-foot-11 Pete Maravich, and his game was as unpredictable as it was entertaining. Kresimir Cosic’s passion for the game transcended borders of continents and time zones.”
When I started covering Tennessee in the 1980s, a kid showed up from the U.S. Virgin Islands
Two years later came a big lug from The Bahamas who could eat up rebounds. What an exotic roster, we thought at the time. Fast forward to 2020. That Tennessee roster included players from Uruguay, France, Serbia and, of all places, Finland.
If we must identify a watershed moment, I’d point to the arrival of Hakeem Olajuwon at the University of Houston in 1981
The 7-footer played high-school ball in Lagos, Nigeria. He was an instant star at the University of Houston, won a national player of the year award in 1983 and was first-team All-America in 1984. Hakeem “The Dream” became the first pick of the 1984 NBA draft.
By the 21st century colleges had stepped up their recruiting of overseas talent
There were good players over there — wherever there was. As the esteemed Thomas Friedman wrote, the world was getting flatter. The internet made scouting and communication in general easier. A college coach in Indiana could sit at his desk and watch video of a prospect in Turkey. More than a few teen internationals got hooked up with a high school stateside.
Traffic has increased in the past several years due to the arrival of NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness)
In a landmark ruling, the NCAA allowed players to be compensated financially through the use of their “name, image and likeness.’’ The days of under-the-table payments to recruits became an open market. Thus, coming to The States has more appeal to that power forward in Lithuania. While there is red tape for foreign students on visas to be remunerated, work-arounds have manifested.
So here we are
NCAA data on the 2024-25 season revealed that roughly 15 percent of all Division I players, men and women, are international — 1,838 players to be specific. Of that total, 879 were European. Leading countries: Canada (312); Spain (182); Australia (177).
Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., has been a leading international recruiter en route to becoming a national power. South Carolina has a big man from Mongolia. Oklahoma State has teammates from Israel and Iran. I’d love to eavesdrop in that locker room.
If the United Nations offered a trophy, Cal Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California – known on scoreboards as Cal Poly — might take it. Their roster includes players from eight foreign countries spread over six continents, including a wing guard from that hoops hotbed, Qatar. But, a word of caution. The night I watched Cal-Poly, they lost by 40.
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This story was written by my long-time friend, Mike Strange. After visiting me earlier this Spring, he volunteered to write this wonderful guest column for me while I’m recuperating from eye surgery. Thanks, Mike. You are The Man.
