March Madness has international flair for many women’s teams

STORRS, Conn. (AP) — When star guard PaigeBueckers went down with a season-ending knee injury last August,UConn went searching far and wide for a late addition to itsroster.

The Huskies found one overseas in Inês Bettencourt, a pointguard from the Azores, off the coast of Portugal. An assistantcoach had noticed her playing at the Division B U18 EuropeanChampionships.

A couple of months later, the Huskies announced the signing of aplayer they hope will be their next dominant forward: Jana El Alfy,who is 6-foot-4 and from Egypt. She enrolled in January and joinedthe team, but will not play until next season.

The Big East champions are headed to the NCAA Tournament as aNo. 2 seed with six international players on the roster afterhaving just 10 others since Geno Auriemma began coaching the teamin 1985.

“There was very little video of them back then,” Auriemma said.“Today, we have video and those kids have video of everything; theysee everything. They watch every one of our games and we have achance to see them during the summer more because there’s moreinternational competitions.”

“It’s not the answer to everything,” he added. “But in certainsituations it is, for us, the exact right way to go.”

It’s also a trend across women’s college basketball.

The NCAA, citing numbers provided by FIBA, said there were 731international women playing Division I college basketball in 2022,up nearly 350% from 212 in 2012.

Pac-12 Tournament champion Washington State, a No. 5 seed, hasnine international players on its roster, including all fivestarters.

Johanna Teder, a senior guard from Estonia, said she thinksthere is something in the makeup of players willing to go halfwayaround the world to pursue their dreams that has contributed to herteam’s success.

“It’s a big decision,” she said. “Us internationals, we’re moreexperienced and like independent, if that makes sense. So, maturityplays a big role.”

South Florida won the American Athletic Conference regularseason title and is a No. 8 seed in the NCAA tourney, with eightinternational players.

USF coach Jose Fernandez has been recruiting heavily overseasfor the last two decades. He said he started looking to Europe andelsewhere because his program was having a hard time competing withbigger names in college basketball for top players in the U.S.

What he found, he said, is a bunch of very talented kids whowere often more emotionally and intellectually prepared for collegebasketball than their American counterparts.

“I don’t think I’ve had an international player ever graduatewith less than a 3.5 GPA, which is amazing with English being theirsecond language,” he said. “There’s also there’s no entitlement,right? A lot of these international recruits they’re not gettingtwo, three, four, five, six, seven, eight pairs of shoes, and fouror five different jerseys and, and, and getting treated likeAmerican high school prospects are treated as eighth, ninth and10th graders.”

He said he used to see three or four other U.S. college coachesand international competitions, but now sees about 40 or 50. ElAlfy began getting noticed by U.S. college coaches as a member ofher national team, which is coached by her father, while attendingcamps sponsored by the NBA.

“They really helped me a lot with everything, especially withtheir camps all around the world, not just in Africa,” she said. “Iwas able to like go to Australia and also be on a differentenvironment and different culture. I got to improve on myself andjust getting the experience to be there is just something that I’mgrateful for.”

The NBA, which has been running its residential NBA Academy formale international players for years, began sponsoring camps forelite international girls in 2018 and has held camps in India,Mexico, Senegal and the U.S.

Chris Ebersole, associate vice president of the NBA and head ofthe league’s Elite Basketball programs, said the idea is to gatherthe top talent from around the world and expose them to greatcoaching and opportunities while educating them about theiroptions.

“We’ve seen that there’s actually a ton of untapped potential interms of international women’s basketball, through those BasketballWithout Borders camps in Africa, in Europe and Latin America and inAsia,” he said.

About 40 players in Division I have come through those camps, hesaid, including UConn’s El Alfy, Nika Mühl (Croatia) and AaliyahEdwards (Canada).

Mühl said the camps helped her make the decision to attendcollege rather than go straight to professional basketball inEurope.

“It gave me a little glimpse of like, what life in America wouldbe, you know, different people from different cultures playingtogether, which is what we have here,” she said. “But ultimately,the thing that made me come here is UConn itself and coach GenoAuriemma. There’s nothing else like the history and the culture ofthis place.”

Lou Lopez Sénéchal, a Mexican national who grew up in France,spent four years at Fairfield before transferring to UConn for agraduate season.

She said for her and other international players, the draw ofplaying in the United States had a lot to do with being able tostay in school and play with people her own age, rather than goingpro and competing against older women.

“It comes also from being curious, wanting to travel, wanting todiscover a new country, and not just wanting to stay in your ownworld and kind of like getting out of your comfort zone,” shesaid.

Fernandez said there are many things that make the U.S. moreattractive for international players than playing for a club orprofessional team closer to home. He noted “with ESPN+ andeverything else” parents can watch their kids from afar.

Dorka Juhász (Hungary), who transferred from Ohio State beforethe 2021-22 season, said the international students have formed abond a UConn. The older ones, she said, help the younger ones dealwith issues that arise, such as homesickness, doing taxes, visasand how to get celebrity endorsement deals without jeopardizingtheir status.

“It’s good to have somebody to rely on and you’re not the onlyone,” she said. “It’s also good to see that UConn lovesinternational players. Just seeing so many other faces that arehere from different countries, and how they’re loving it here. Ithink that’s just showing how much they care about us here.”