She was invited to join the Australian Institute of Sport\u2019s basketball Centre of Excellence aged only 15 and last year travelled to the US with them to play in front of college scouts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think at least 50 colleges were there watching,\u201d she laughed.<\/p>\n
In the bleachers was Dawn Staley, head coach of the University of South Carolina, who has won three national championships \u2013 tied third for the most a school has won. It\u2019s also where A\u2019ja Wilson, commonly considered the current best player in women\u2019s basketball, went to college.<\/p>\n
Perhaps Staley saw similarities between Fagan and Wilson, who also plays as a forward. Staley offered the 17-year-old a scholarship to attend South Carolina after that game, and it would have been an immediate acceptance if not for the 26 other schools vying for the Australian\u2019s favour. Now, she has a big decision to make.<\/p>\n
With her decision deadline looming in November, Fagan has narrowed her choice down to three schools to visit in person. First, she\u2019ll fly into the west coast and visit the University of Southern California, who ranked fifth last season. Then, she\u2019ll travel south to tour Texas University (fourth) before finishing at South Carolina (second).<\/p>\n
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Each school will make their last attempts to persuade Fagan to join them. But with the stakes this high, the courting began long ago. Since last year, Fagan said there have been phone calls, text messages and FaceTimes with college recruiters.<\/p>\n
South Carolina even digitally rendered the college\u2019s jersey onto a photo of Fagan to show her a glimpse of what her future could look like on the university\u2019s team.<\/p>\n
The intensity of recruiting has only increased with the boom in women\u2019s college basketball. Viewership has soared in the last few seasons, evident in players such as Caitlin Clark<\/a> and Paige Bueckers<\/a> who each have millions of social media followers and millions in sponsorship deals.<\/p>\n Viewership of the league is at a record high and still increasing. Clark\u2019s final college game was viewed by 18.9 million people on ESPN, making it the most-watched men\u2019s or women\u2019s college basketball game in history.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also never been more profitable thanks to a 2021 US Supreme Court ruling that athletes could profit from their name, image and likeness (NIL) without losing their eligibility to play at the college level and a June settlement approving revenue sharing between colleges and their athletes. Although it\u2019s not as easy yet for international students to earn due to their student visas, active lawsuits could change that in the very near future.<\/p>\n