The days of thinking basketball is solely America’s game are long gone.

The most obvious impact is at the NBA level, where the 1992 U.S. men’s Olympic Dream Team ignited a global revolution. Last year, rosters featured 109 international players from 39 different countries.

The impact has had a trickle down effect to college basketball, with programs like the NBA Global Academy assisting in the development of international prospects, and the UCLA men’s basketball roster currently features three players who were born overseas.

According to the NCAA, as of 2020, 17 percent of Division I men’s basketball players were international students. The NCAA defines international athletes as those with a non-U.S. home address, so the figures are higher when taking into account foreign-born players who were brought to the U.S. earlier to play high school basketball.

It was a long time coming for Bruins head coach Mick Cronin.

“I’ve wanted to do it for a long time,” Cronin said, adding that the time commitment and need for connections makes international recruiting tough to do.

“I can walk in and people are nice to me, but the problem is they know the other guy 20 years. But I do think the game has become international, I’ve thought that for a while.”

At the college level, schools like Saint Mary’s have successfully recruited Australia over the years, while currently in the Pac-12 Conference there are examples like Arizona with a roster that features eight international players from six different countries thanks to head coach Tommy Lloyd and his prior experience recruiting overseas for Gonzaga.