{"id":197245,"date":"2025-10-02T13:43:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T13:43:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/197245\/"},"modified":"2025-10-02T13:43:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T13:43:06","slug":"rutgers-basketball-adds-two-european-pro-players-as-freshmen-for-2025-26-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/197245\/","title":{"rendered":"Rutgers Basketball Adds Two European Pro Players as Freshmen for 2025-26 Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two overseas stars with professional experience will join Rutgers basketball next season. Thanks to the NCAA’s new eligibility rules, Denis Badalau from Romania and Harun Zrno from Bosnia will play as freshmen in 2025-26.<\/p>\n

“They speak a lot of languages. Basketball is an international sport. They’re great… These kids left home a long time ago. They are very, very mature,” said Steve Pikiell to 247Sports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Recent NCAA changes now allow teams to recruit players with overseas pro experience. Badalau played in Italy’s top division, while Zrno made his mark in Bosnia’s highest league before picking Rutgers.<\/p>\n

The timing is perfect, as the team loses several key players. The departure of four major contributors – Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper to the NBA draft, plus Jeremiah Williams and Lathan Sommerville through transfers – created a 52.2-point gap in scoring.<\/p>\n

Zrno, who switched from Indiana after a coaching change, looks set to start at shooting guard. Meanwhile, Badalau has shown off his shooting skills during practice.<\/p>\n

“Harun is awesome… Denis came a little bit later and has been our best shooter. I think he is 49% from three in all of our live action. He’s been great. He’s a hell of a passer. Harun too,” Pikiell noted.<\/p>\n

The seasoned coach begins his 10th season with impressive results. His leadership got Rutgers back to March Madness in 2021 – ending a 30-year wait – and again in 2022.<\/p>\n

Among seven new players on the team, these two caught assistant coach Jay Young’s attention during his scouting trips overseas.<\/p>\n

The signings show how college basketball is changing, with talent hunting now going well beyond American borders. With updated NCAA rules, coaches have new ways to build winning teams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two overseas stars with professional experience will join Rutgers basketball next season. Thanks to the NCAA’s new eligibility…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[402,398,400,401,35859,99],"class_list":["post-197245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaabasketball","tag-rutgers","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}