When Jovana Popovic arrived in Portland, Oregon to participate in the 2025 Nike Hoop Summit in April, the 17-year-old Serbian guard didn’t make an immediate impression.
The Nike Hoop Summit is one of the most prestigious high school showcases in the country, an international all-star game between Team USA and Team World featuring players who represent other countries in FIBA competition. Eight of the top 10 recruits in the 2025 class competed for Team USA, and Team World featured four players ranked in the top 20. Eight of Popovic’s World teammates now play for power conference programs in the NCAA, and 2026 UConn commitment Oliva Vukosa was also on the roster. Popovic was one of the youngest players in attendance and surrounded by American prep superstars, so Team World coach Carly Clarke said she was understandably shy off the court.
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But as soon as there was a basketball in Popovic’s hands, Team World coach Carly Clarke realized her game spoke far louder than she did.
“When English isn’t your first language and you’re coming into that environment, sometimes there’s so timidness, but she was always super comfortable on the court right away,” Clarke said. “She’s kind of like a silent assassin … She’s a little bit more quiet in how she carries herself, but there is a little bit of flash to her game.”
Popovic has played professionally in Serbia since 2023, but she decided to pursue the NCAA rout for the next phase of her career when she signed with the UConn women’s basketball team on Nov. 20. The 5-foot-8 guard has long been on the Huskies’ radar, and coach Geno Auriemma said Popovic reminds him a bit of former UConn standout Nika Muhl, the Croatian point guard who graduated in 2024 as the program’s all-time assists leader.
“She’s a kind of kid like Nika. She’s always wanted to come to the States and play basketball,” Auriemma said. “Playing at UConn is a big dream for a lot of those kids now, and I like the way she plays. She’s tough, she can score, she plays with older kids … There’s an awful lot of things that I value that she possesses, so I’m excited for her.”
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Popovic’s international experience speaks for itself. She made her debut with Serbia’s senior national team at the 2025 EuroBasket tournament where she competed against several active WNBA players, and she also led the junior national team to a bronze medal at the 2024 U18 EuroBasket tournament. She helped her club ZKK Art Basket to its first championship in the First League of Serbia in 2023-24, and she was crowned the league MVP and Best Shooter in 2024-25.
The Serbian star also proved she has no trouble competing with top American talent at the Nike Hoop Summit. In 18 minutes off the bench against Team USA, Popovic scored 11 points and shot 4-for-6 from the field, adding an assist and an offensive rebound to her final stat line. Though Team World lost 90-78, Popovic was its third leading scorer and outscored all of the starters, also hitting one of just four made 3-pointers for the team.
Clarke, who also coaches women’s basketball at Toronto Metropolitan University, saw UConn play firsthand when her team hosted the Huskies for an exhibition game in Dec. 2023, and she believes Popovic will be have a smooth transition into the program.
“The UConn offense is based around ball movement, sharing the ball, finding great shots, and I think she has great feel for that,” Clarke said. “I think she’ll be able to fit into their system really, really well … She’s a great passer and creator, so she reads the floor really well. She’s really solid in ball screen actions and makes good decisions out of those scenarios. I think she’s comfortable and confident with the ball in her hands.”
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UConn’s 2025 class included two international recruits in Ecuadorian forward Blanca Quinonez and Irish center Gandy Malou-Mamel, and the team has had immense success with players from overseas in recent years. The program has sent four international players to the WNBA in the last three years — Hungarian forward Dorka Juhasz to the Minnesota Lynx and French-Mexican guard Lou Lopez-Senechal to the Dallas Wings in 2023, then Muhl to the Seattle Storm and Canadian forward Aaliyah Edwards to the Washington Mystics in 2024.
The Huskies mirror a nationwide trend of increased international recruiting in women’s basketball, and Auriemma believes the overseas presence in the NCAA will continue to grow in the modern era of revenue sharing and NIL.
“I think there’s going to be even more going forward. I think there’s a lot of really good players over there that had a choice between going to America and going to school, and their other choice was stay home, join some club team,” Auriemma said in September. “Now that financially it could work for them a little bit better, you’re going to see more and more of them come over. I don’t think they come with the same expectations that you might have kids over here, so I think they’re in great demand right now by coaches around the country.”
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