INTERNATIONALS PLAYING COLLEGE BASKETBALL IN AMERICA 

1998

Mr. Rudy Washington, Editor-in-Chief The BCA Journal

P. O. Box 4040

Culver City, CA 90231-4040

Dear M.r Washington:

I’ve coached college tennis for 30-plus years and I have been dismayed by the preponderance of international players who have usurped many tennis scholarships from American youngsters.

There seems to be a trend toward this in basketball. Has the BCA addressed the danger to American student athletes this poses, in particular college basketball. Should there be a  limit to this?

If your Journal has addressed this issue, please let me know. It seems basketball is a game that this should concern.

ETP:1h

Sincerely,

Tom Parham

Men’s Tennis Coach

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2025– AI REPORT

Estimate of Non-American Starters in 2024 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball

International Player Representation in 2023-24

The 2023-24 season saw a record influx of international (non-U.S.) players in Division I men’s basketball. According to FIBA’s analysis of NCAA data, 826 male international players competed in Division I during 2023-24 (2024 Migration Report highlights ongoing surge in International Transfers | About FIBA). This marked a 5.8% increase from the previous season and a substantial jump from a few years prior (for context, there were about 663 international players in 2018-19 (The Global Game: An Overview of European Players in College Basketball – BasketballNcaa)). The presence of foreign talent is widespread across schools: most Division I programs (78.5%) had at least one foreign-born scholarship player on their roster as of 2018, and nearly 30% of teams had three or more international players that year (The Global Game: An Overview of European Players in College Basketball – BasketballNcaa). With the continued growth in international recruits (Canada and Europe being top sources), it’s likely that an even higher percentage of teams carry multiple non-American players today.

International Players in Starting Lineups

Not all 826 international athletes are starters, but many play significant roles. By 2024, the majority of Division I teams have at least one international player, and in many cases that player is a starter or key rotation member. It’s common for teams to start one foreign player, and some programs even feature two international players in their starting five (given that roughly 30% of teams had 3+ internationals on roster in 2018 (The Global Game: An Overview of European Players in College Basketball – BasketballNcaa), those teams often start more than one). This trend has only grown as coaches actively recruit overseas talent for impact roles.

Estimating the Number of Non-American Starters

With approximately 350–360 Division I teams (each with five starting spots, ~1,750+ total starters), we can estimate how many of those starters are non-American. If we assume around 70–80% of teams start at least one international player, that alone would account for roughly 250–280 foreign starters (0.7–0.8 × ~350). In addition, a number of teams likely start two international players, which could add a few dozen more to the count. Considering these factors, a reasonable estimate is that around 300 (give or take) of the starting players in Division I men’s basketball for the 2024 season were non-Americans. In percentage terms, this is on the order of 15–20% of all starters. This figure aligns with the proportion of international players in the sport (roughly 16% of D1 men’s players in recent years) and reflects the significant global influence on college basketball.

Conclusion: Exact figures for “starters” aren’t officially tracked by nationality, but based on the latest available data and team trends, roughly 250 to 300 Division I starting spots were filled by non-American players in 2024. In other words, around three hundred international players were regular starters in men’s D1 college basketball for the 2023-24 season, highlighting the growing impact of foreign players at the collegiate level (2024 Migration Report highlights ongoing surge in International Transfers | About FIBA) (The Global Game: An Overview of European Players in College Basketball – BasketballNcaa).

Sources: Official FIBA/NCAA reports and analyses of player demographics have been used to inform these estimates (2024 Migration Report highlights ongoing surge in International Transfers | About FIBA) (The Global Game: An Overview of European Players in College Basketball – BasketballNcaa). The increase to 826 international players in 2023-24 and the high percentage of teams featuring foreign talent form the basis for approximating how many of those athletes occupy starting roles. The estimate is well-founded given the data trends, even if an exact count of starters by nationality is not published.