https://www.khon2.com/sports/wahine-water-polo-star-departs-for-ucla/
The rich get richer. There should be some epic battles between UCLA and Stanford next year. UCLA will be loaded at center with Dias, Pearson, and Green (returning from the Australian Olympic team).
And Stanford has added a 3rd team all American transfer from ASU. Link to story
This is the new reality of college athletics, but I have to say your point about the rich getting richer seems to be the trend and I find it pretty disheartening.
Just because I honestly don’t know, is there a reason this seems to be happening with international players more? Is it easier to transfer or is it just they are more likely to change schools for athletic reasons or something else?
Some college teams seem to have the majority of their rosters comprised of international players. I was just reading that this year for JOs, teams are allowed only 2 international players per team. This is a similar approach to UK soccer and cricket club teams. I wonder if we might see something like this at the college level. It would definitely spread the international talent around.
While there are quite a few international players on the women’s college teams, I am actually surprised that there are not more playing on the top teams.
Of the top 5 teams last year, Hawaii was the only one that greatly benefited from having international players. I am sure that I am overlooking some, but from the other teams, I only remember Aznar from USC, Szegedi from UCLA and Voordouw and Voorvelt from Cal. I do not remember any international players from Stanford.
Obviously, this will change a bit next year with the return of the Olympians, but the overall numbers of international players on the top teams look to be much less on the women’s side than on the men’s.