Every year since 2017/18, Hoopsfix has published a Brits in College article tracking which British women are playing in North American college basketball.
Each season also includes a list of players who have left North American college basketball, along with a short note on what they did next. By combining those lists across multiple seasons, we can use them as evidence for what different college starting points tend to lead to.
Reaching D1
Where a player starts shapes a lot of what happens next.
The table below shows the share of players from each starting point who spent at least one season at a D1 school.
| Starting Level | Players | % Reached D1 |
|---|---|---|
| D1 | 77 | 100.0% |
| D2 | 54 | 0.0% |
| D3 | 4 | 0.0% |
| JUCO | 66 | 19.7% |
| NAIA | 11 | 0.0% |
| Canada | 5 | 0.0% |
| USCAA/NCCAA/CCCAA | 1 | 0.0% |
Outside players who begin at D1, almost nobody reaches it later.
JUCO is the only route where upward movement shows up at all, and even there it remains a minority outcome, with fewer than one in five eventually reaching D1. Across D2, D3, NAIA, Canada and the smaller US college groupings in this dataset, it does not happen at all.
That does not mean lower-level offers are bad choices. It does mean they should not be understood as likely routes into D1.
Time in College
The table below shows the share of players from each starting point who appeared on the Hoopsfix lists for only one season before leaving North American college basketball or dropping out of Hoopsfix tracking.
To avoid counting current students as if their college run were already complete, players currently in their first college year have been excluded from this calculation.
| Starting Level | Players | % One Year |
|---|---|---|
| D1 | 71 | 9.9% |
| D2 | 50 | 12.0% |
| D3 | 4 | 25.0% |
| JUCO | 60 | 23.3% |
| NAIA | 8 | 37.5% |
| Canada | 4 | 50.0% |
| USCAA/NCCAA/CCCAA | 1 | 100.0% |
The clearest signal is that one-year runs are much less common for players who start at D1 or D2. Once the starting point drops below that, short stays become much more common.
That does not tell us exactly what happened in each case, because the Hoopsfix lists track college basketball participation rather than college enrolment on its own. A one-year stay could reflect basketball fit, academic or personal adjustment, transfer, or simply losing clear public tracking. Either way, getting there is only part of the challenge. Staying there is another.
Where Players Sign
Within college, the picture looks much like the men’s. In both datasets, D1 is difficult to reach without starting there, and one-year runs become more common once the starting point drops below D2.
What happens next looks different. Hoopsfix tracks whether a player’s immediate next step after college was to join a senior basketball team.
| Stat | Women | Men |
|---|---|---|
| Player Outcomes | 218 | 669 |
| % Signed With Team | 17.0% | 35.0% |
This does not include players who signed later, after that season’s Hoopsfix list was published. But within the immediate outcomes Hoopsfix records, women are much less likely than men to be listed as joining a team straight after college.
Among those who do sign straight away, the destination looks different too.
| Starting Level | %UK Women | %UK Men |
|---|---|---|
| D1 | 66.7% | 30.9% |
| D2 | 87.5% | 61.5% |
| D3 | – | 75.0% |
| JUCO | 83.3% | 58.3% |
| NAIA | 100.0% | 66.7% |
| Canada | 100.0% | 60.0% |
| USCAA/NCCAA/CCCAA | – | 100.0% |
Across every comparable starting point, women who sign after college are more likely than men to return to the UK.
Understanding the Offer
None of this means a player should only go to North America if the offer is at D1 or D2 level. Lower-level offers can still be the right choice, but they usually mean a harder path to D1 and less time in North American college basketball.
The women’s data also points to a different post-college shape than the men’s. Among players who do sign, women are more likely to begin that next step in the UK.
The right decision will still depend on the player. The important thing is having a clearer sense of what each option is likely to lead to.
The same analysis on the men’s side was published yesterday.
