PHOENIX – The airport’s luggage and accessibility carts beep and hum loudly. An intercom system barks out words in a foreign language that are hard to understand, even for a native speaker. As she begins to walk through the terminal, Heloisa Carrera spots a sign that signals her new journey: “Welcome to Atlanta.”
It was then that it finally set in for Carrera. She was no longer in her home country of Brazil. The college journey was just beginning.
Arizona State forward Carrera is one of over 1,200 international players competing on NCAA women’s basketball rosters, according to research by Her Hoops Stat, an increase of 25% from the 2021-22 season. The potential for these athletes to benefit from name, image and likeness opportunities in the future could bring even more to the United States.
Welcome to America
Now over 4,600 miles away from home, Carrera remembers just how far she had traveled alone.
“It was the first time (I had left Brazil),” Carrera said. “I went to the Atlanta airport, which is massive, and I sat down and looked to the sky and was like, ‘Oh my God – I’m here by myself.’”
With all the built-up stress and anxiety moving a continent away can impose, feeling scared isn’t unusual. However, Carrera felt a strong sense of excitement knowing what opportunities were in her near future.
“It was scary, but at the same time I was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to have a lot of fun here.’”
A little over five years later, Carrera would be the starting forward at Arizona State, and not only starting, but third in points, leading the team in blocks and starting every game for the Sun Devils during the 2025-26 season.
The journey from São Paulo, Brazil, to Tempe and starting at ASU – although seemingly untraditional – is the journey Carrera needed to become one of the top players for the Sun Devils.
When she landed in Atlanta, Carrera was bound for Bradenton, Florida, a part of the broader Tampa Bay area. There she would attend high school at IMG Academy, one of the top high school programs in the country for athletics.
Over the next few years, Carrera showcased her abilities on IMG’s women’s basketball team and on Brazil’s FIBA U19 women’s basketball team. By getting a top-tier high school program and FIBA experience on her resume, Carrera was set up perfectly to make the jump to the collegiate level.
Coming out of IMG, Carrera committed to the University of Mississippi, a prominent SEC program for women’s basketball in recent years.
In just a few years, Carrera went from the beaches of São Paulo, Brazil, to sunny Tampa, Florida. She described the move to be easier due to the similarities in both of the cities’ environments. However, the move to Oxford, Mississippi, was a massive culture shock.
“When I went to Mississippi, I was lost,” Carrera said. “It was really, really different … but I’m glad I’m here and back on the heat here in Arizona.”
Carrera had spent her entire life in the bustling city of São Paulo and the large coastal city of Tampa. The change to a small Southern college town was an adjustment.
Mississippi is slightly under three million people, while her hometown of São Paulo has more than seven times the population with 23 million. Carrera said that her experience in Mississippi was positive but overall was limited because of how different the environment was.
After only a year in Mississippi, Carrera entered the NCAA’s transfer portal and found a new home in Tempe.
Recruiting international players is not an exact science. There is no clear set way to get from “Point A” to “Point B.”
The junior college route
One of the more unsung and challenging paths is the junior college journey.
Many times, JUCO players use the junior college route as a way to get to the higher ranks of the sport, hoping to land on an NCAA Division I team. Sometimes though, players utilize it just to play the sport they love in tandem with a free education.
At Benedictine University Mesa, Alannah Northam is a year away from graduating while playing for the Redhawks women’s basketball team.
The native of Ocean Grove, Australia, made the journey to the U.S. to play at Olympic College in Washington before transferring to Benedictine to finish out her career.
Playing in the United States to enhance her basketball and academics was always a goal.
“Just because the basketball I find is a lot better,” Northam said. “And I was able to study and get a degree while playing the sport that I loved.”
Northam comes from a small beach town. When she arrived in Seattle, with its massive interstates and imposing buildings, the culture shock set in.
“America is just a lot bigger (than I imagined),” Northam said. “And seeing the roads, the highways, I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh where am I?’”
While in the United States, Northam has played for two different junior colleges and has experienced tough setbacks in her journey.
“When I was in Washington, I completely tore my whole ankle apart,” Northam said. “So I had to get surgery and take a year off from playing.”
The road to recovery is already intimidating but when it is as serious a surgery as the one Northam had – and when you are an ocean away from home – it makes it all the more mentally draining.
Instead of having the helping hands of family members to assist with getting around and taking on and off braces, Northam had to rely on herself and her school’s athletic training staff.
Although Northam is still playing, she does need another surgery to fully repair her ankle. She is confident this injury will not affect her journey after she completes her degree.
“I would love to stay here (in the U.S.) and get a job, but I also would love to go and play overseas,” Northam said. “I’d love to just travel and play basketball. That would be the main plan.”
Northam said she wants to be a physical education teacher after her playing career is over. It would combine her passion for teaching and staying active.
These opportunities and goals are achievable for Northam because she decided to come to the U.S. to play collegiate basketball.
A commonality between Carrera and Northam’s journey to the U.S. is the jarring experience they had traveling to the U.S. solo.
“Packing my whole life up in two suitcases and then saying bye to everyone to go to a completely different country that I’ve never been to before was definitely scary,” Northam said.
However, and most importantly, Northam said she has no regrets abot the decision to come and play in the United States.
Why here? Why now?
Why would an athlete go through such a difficult journey to play in the United States?
Benefits abound for those who make the trek, especially for players trying to reach the professional ranks. The U.S. features some of the best coaching and exposure to prepare them for the next level.
However, for players who do not have aspirations or the skill to play basketball professionally, the U.S. is unique in its offering of full-ride scholarships. Other countries may provide funding, but it’s often through government subsidies or national sports federations.
Charli Turner Thorne, the former Arizona State women’s basketball coach and current scout for the Phoenix Mercury, said there’s a strong reason for them to come to the United States to play.
“There is no other place in the world besides the United States where you can play and get your education paid for,” Thorne said. “(Most of the time) they’re separate. That’s what’s so enticing for international kids to come to the U.S. because they can play and they get their education paid for.”
The sport’s status as a global game is another reason why so many international players come to the U.S., said Lynn Holzman, the NCAA vice president of women’s basketball.
Holzman pointed to the recent Summer Olympics in Paris as proof that the game itself is not dominated by the U.S. in the way it was in the past. In the 2024 Summer Olympic women’s basketball final, the U.S. barely slipped past France in a 67-66 thriller. Since the playing field is more level than it has been in the sport’s history, more international players are coming to the U.S. to compete regardless of the level.
“Our U.S. national team and women’s basketball continues to dominate, but it’s not like it used to be,” Holzman said. “The performance on the court – and you see the competitiveness of the games, how other countries, what they are bringing to that international stage – that is a pretty stark reveal … about how the game is progressing internationally.”
That growing competition on the court is reflected in the growth of the sport in the media as well.
Meg Aronowitz, ESPN’s vice president of production, said she has been blown away by the growth of women’s college basketball.
“We reported (recently) that we’re up 33% year over year in audience size,” Aronowitz said.
The 2026 Women’s Final Four was the second-most viewed Final Four on record, ESPN reported, averaging 6.7 million viewers across three games.
The demographics of viewership has changed, too.
“The audience growth has been terrific,” Aronowitz said. “And the audience growth in specific demographics, we’re getting younger. We’re getting more diverse. Women are watching. And that’s where it’s important because that opens up eyeballs and doorways and pathways to new sales opportunities as well, which benefits everybody in this world.”
International college athletes continue to face major hurdles with NIL due to U.S. immigration laws, but recent developments could change that and eventually lure more athletes.
“The last few years, international kids couldn’t get NIL,” Thorne said. “They couldn’t get some of the extra money so it was almost an advantage to have them because you didn’t have to worry about paying.”
Thorne said it’s good that the system is getting figured out and that there may soon be ways to pay these athletes. These changes could encourage more international players to come to the U.S.
ASU women’s basketball coach Molly Miller had three international players on her 2025-26 roster. Miller said she believes that having international players on a team is vital to that team’s chemistry and journey.
“The diversity of any sports team is extensive,” Miller said. “You’ve got a bunch of different people from different backgrounds coming together for common goals. When that happens, people lean into that story … and our team with international students.”
NCAA Division I women’s basketball is at an interesting point when it comes to roster construction. There are teams that are built up and stick together through multiple years like 2025-26 national champion UCLA; there are teams built entirely through the transfer portal; and there are teams that solely rely on international talent.
ASU has consistently been a mix of international and homegrown talent over the past decade. However, some teams – due to the added benefits U.S. colleges have compared to international universities – use this as leverage when recruiting players overseas.
Thorne remembers how the late June Daugherty, a coach at Washington State for several years, sought out players overseas.
Daugherty often told Thorne how hard it was to get American players to come to Pullman, Washington. As a result, Daugherty would almost exclusively recruit international players.
Daugherty’s successor, Kamie Ethridge, has continued similar tactics.
These changes to the way universities can recruit and sustain international players with NIL funds will put a strain on schools. But it is also an opportunity for more players to head to the U.S. to strengthen their skills and receive more benefits than they would anywhere else in the world.
Growing the game at ASU
ASU has seen an increase of international women’s basketball players.
During this time frame, ASU has had three different head coaches (Thorne, Natasha Adair and Molly Miller). With every head coach there is a different emphasis on who and what type of player is recruited.
From the 2010-11 season to the 2017-18 season, ASU averaged one international player on the roster.
From the 2018-19 season to the 2025-26 season, the average number of international players on an ASU women’s basketball roster increased to 3.125.
This is a sharp increase, especially when you consider a basketball roster has a limit of 15 players. However, due to scholarships and roster differences across the country – most schools have around 13 players.
This means that the increase in the average number of international players went from one out of 13 spots to 3.125 out of 13, for an increase from 7.7% to 24.0% of a 13-player roster.
This is a dramatic difference compared to previous years.
However, it does suggest that if this rise can happen at ASU, it can happen on a similar scale with other schools across the United States.
Five years difference, 5,800 miles away
Thousands of miles away from where the journey started, Heloisa Carrera’s journey might have seemed extremely unlikely.
While many players are now taking similar steps, it does not mean the journey has been easy nor is the same for everyone.
For Carrera, she had to brave paths by herself and was without her family for many of the early days in her journey.
However, during her senior year of high school, Carrera’s parents moved to Florida to closely follow her games and career.
Although they did not follow her to Mississippi, as soon as Carrera knew she was heading to Arizona, her family decided to head to the Valley as well.
From an airport terminal in a foreign country a continent away from your family, Carrera can now look in the stands and spot her family at Desert Financial Arena every time she suits up for the Sun Devils.
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