This French Star Faces Significant Hurdles in Pursuit of NCAA Competition
The international portal for college basketball has never been more substantial; furthermore, coaches like Brad Underwood at Illinois are helping international prospects take advantage of new eligibility rules and capitalize on NIL benefits. By all accounts, top-ranked French prospect Brice Dessert should be gearing up for the 2025-26 college basketball season. The French big man, who most recently suited up in France’s top-tier LNB Élite league, has the tools to contribute at the high-major level. In recently reported news regarding Dessert’s recruiting, he had talked with Kansas as a potential landing spot, yet, like other international prospects like Neoklis Avdalas, who recently committed to Virginia Tech, to finding homes on rosters across the United States. Now, Dessert finds himself in limbo—caught in a web of NCAA rules and American visa restrictions that threaten to keep him sidelined from the college game entirely.
The first obstacle for Dessert relies on NCAA eligibility. Since Dessert played professionally in France, the NCAA Eligibility Center must review his case to determine if his amateur status remains intact. Even for international players who received limited pay or benefits, this review process can drag on and ultimately disqualify them from competition entirely. For someone like Dessert, who has already logged minutes in a respected pro league, the NCAA may see his eligibility as compromised unless he can prove he didn’t receive compensation beyond necessary living expenses. In other words, if Dessert can prove to the NCAA that the compensation he received while playing for LNB Elite was strictly for travel, meals, and housing, then he can seriously challenge the NCAA’s eligibility rules.
The more complex challenge for Brice Dessert may not stem from NCAA eligibility but from U.S. immigration law. Most international students hold F-1 visas, which limit them to 20 hours of on-campus work per week. This restriction effectively shuts them out of the NIL market that now defines college basketball. If Dessert were to enroll, he wouldn’t be able to profit from endorsements, appearances, or social media deals like his American teammates. In short, unless regulations shift, Dessert would be playing for free while others earn thousands and even millions. Some elite international athletes have secured O-1 or P-1A visas, designated for individuals with extraordinary talent or global recognition. These visas offer more freedom and may allow NIL participation, but they’re hard to obtain and may conflict with NCAA amateurism standards. For most players, including Dessert, such visas remain legally murky and far from guaranteed. Meanwhile, federal lawmakers have begun to take notice. Legislation like the “Name, Image, and Likeness for International Collegiate Athletes Act” has been proposed to resolve the disconnect between immigration policy and college athletics, but for now, it’s just a proposal. The NCAA’s recent settlement on NIL revenue sharing could eventually reshape the system, but those benefits may come too late for Dessert, who must make decisions in the present and for his benefit.
What options remain for someone with a challenging situation like Dessert? He could attempt to secure a P-1A visa and hope to persuade the NCAA of his eligibility. He could continue his professional career in Europe and enter the 2026 NBA Draft as an automatic international entrant. His last option would be to wait, banking on political or administrative change that could allow him to participate in college athletics in a year or two. Until then, Brice Dessert is a symbol of a much larger issue: a growing gap between the global talent pool and a domestic college system that still hasn’t figured out how to handle international prospects. His story is a cautionary tale about how complicated it’s become to simply play basketball in America, and how being ready on the court no longer guarantees a chance to compete.
