Going Global
More than 1,000 current women’s college basketball players come from outside the United States. Spain, Australia and Canada lead the way.
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UConn’s leaders in rebounds, assists, field goal and 3-point shooting percentage this season have something in common: Dorka Juhász, Nika Mühl, Aaliyah Edwards and Lou Lopez Sénéchal all come from outside the United States. The same is true for Arizona’s top rebounder, Esmery Martinez, and leader in assists, Shaina Pellington.
They are some of more than 1,000 international women’s college basketball players on NCAA rosters at every level this season, according to an analysis of roster data. The analysis is based on players’ hometowns as listed on team rosters, meaning that athletes who moved to the United States and do not list their original locations would not be considered international players. Roster information is self-reported by players and teams (and can change), so this may not be a definitive accounting of non-U.S. players.
Seven out of 10 current international players appear on Division I rosters, with most of the rest on Division II teams. D-I players are spread out among multiple conferences, with the Atlantic 10, Pac-12 and West Coast Conference having at least 40 international players each. The Pac-12 has the most non-U.S. players of any Power 5 conference with 43 international players; the ACC has 30. In all, 265 of 361 Division I teams have at least one international player this season.
Notable international players in Division I, aside from UConn’s quartet and Arizona’s duo, include the top scorer in Division I, Drexel’s Keishana Washington (Canada), Kamilla Cardoso (Brazil) and Laeticia Amihere (Canada) of defending national champion South Carolina, Jaz Shelley (Australia) of Nebraska, and Kadi Sissoko (France) of USC.
Her Hoop Stats data shows that at least 975 of the international players have played this season, and 293 of them have started at least 75 percent of their team’s games. More than 80 of them average 30 minutes or more a game, including the four on UConn’s roster. Using win shares per 40 minutes, the advanced statistic that estimates the number of wins per 40 minutes a player produces for her team based on offensive and defensive production, Cardoso ranks ninth overall among players who appeared in at least eight games. Martinez ranks 24th.
Just two of the internationals average more than 20 points a game (Washington and Washington State’s Charlisse Leger-Walker of New Zealand), but others have posted impressive numbers in other areas. Dulcy Fankam Mendjiadeu of South Florida, a native of Cameroon, is averaging nearly 17 points and 12 rebounds a game. UConn’s Edwards (Canada) is averaging 17.5 points and nine rebounds. Leger-Walker isn’t just a scorer; in addition to averaging 21 points, she also has five rebounds and nearly five assists a game.
Some programs, like South Florida, have a reputation for attracting players from overseas. This season, USF welcomed five first-year players from Spain, Finland, Colombia and Sweden to join three international players already on the roster. But it’s a different USF that currently has the most international players of any NCAA team this season. Eleven of the 15 players on the University of San Francisco’s roster this season hail from outside the United States. They come from nine different countries ranging from Australia to Greece.
International players don’t appear on the list of top Division II scorers, but several of them are among the leading scorers for their teams, including Nerea Arambarri Fernandez (Spain), who leads Salem University in West Virginia in scoring at nearly 16 points a game. Eckerd College in Florida has eight international players on its roster - all from different nations - including leading scorer Maya Price (England), top rebounder Sofia Persson (Sweden) and leader in assists Lauryn Vieira (France).
Spain, Australia and Canada all have more than 100 players on NCAA rosters this season and together account for nearly half of all international players; Sweden ranks fourth but with 45 players is some distance from the top three. The only African nation in the top 10 is Nigeria, which has 19 players on U.S. rosters, 16 at Division I schools. Brazil is the leading nation in Latin America, with 15 players, while Australia and New Zealand (28 players) dominate FIBA’s Oceania region. The Asian country with the highest total is China, with five. (Canada’s total is boosted by Simon Fraser University, located in British Columbia, a Division II team that plays in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference. Without SFU, Canada’s total number of players would be 140.)
Not all international players see significant minutes, of course, but they often aren’t alone on a team’s roster. The majority of the 424 teams with international players on the rosters have at least two of them. Thirty-six teams have at least two Australians on their rosters, including Utah, Nebraska, Virginia Tech and Division II schools Minot State and Newberry. The University of Portland has seven Aussies and two New Zealanders on its team. At least two Spainiards are on the rosters of 32 teams, ranging from Georgia Tech to Iona to Wichita State. Division II Franklin Pierce has five players from Spain, while Division III Bethany Lutheran has three.
It’s worth noting how European-centric (aside from Australia, Canada and New Zealand, all of which have ties to the United Kingdom) this collection of players is. While there are players from 86 countries on NCAA rosters this season, just 25 nations account for even 10 players or more. Ireland has 11 of its citizens playing on NCAA teams this season, as many as Senegal and Kenya combined. Norway has more players (nine) than Mexico (eight).
More than 200 of the international players, nearly one in five, are listed as having transferred from another college to their current school, although this includes those whose previous school was a junior college or community college. For what it’s worth, that’s a slightly higher ratio than all players, although it’s likely that not all previous schools are listed for every player who has transferred.
The roster data was compiled and standardized by students in a sports journalism class that I teach at the University of Maryland. While all NCAA teams display roster information, schools vary in what details they provide, use abbreviations and otherwise have inconsistent spellings of hometowns, high schools and previous colleges. We’re still working to standardize this data and to work on previous years so that we can compare changes over time. Learn more about that process (and get the data) here.
Thanks for reading the Her Hoop Stats Newsletter. If you like our work, be sure to check out our stats site, our podcast, and our social media accounts on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.