{"id":505076,"date":"2026-07-09T19:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T17:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/?p=505076"},"modified":"2026-07-09T19:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T17:24:09","slug":"ucla-lands-serbian-rising-star-nikola-kusturica","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/ucla-lands-serbian-rising-star-nikola-kusturica\/","title":{"rendered":"UCLA Lands Serbian Rising Star Nikola Kusturica"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nikola Kusturica, who was recently named to the FIBA U17 World Cup First-Team, has reached a multi-year agreement with UCLA.<\/p>\n<p>The 17-year-old Serbian forward put together a spectacular tournament, averaging 24.6 points, 6.7 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 2.3 steals, and 1.7 blocks per game. He capped off his campaign with a remarkable 37-point performance against Team USA in the championship game.<\/p>\n<p>Kusturica will leave Barcelona to begin his college career in the United States, despite having the opportunity to feature for the club&#8217;s senior team this season.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">BREAKING: Serbian forward Nikola Kusturica has reached a multi-year agreement to play for UCLA, sources told ESPN, giving the Bruins arguably the best European prospect in his age group and an early contender for the No. 1 pick in the 2028 NBA draft. Just turned 17 in April. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/cidHSzED3J\">pic.twitter.com\/cidHSzED3J<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jeff Borzello (@jeffborzello) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/jeffborzello\/status\/2075233522399473721?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 9, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kusturica will leave Barcelona to begin his college career in the United States<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":505075,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_spbk_hide_featured":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[305,401],"tags":[],"rumors":[],"typology":[],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-505076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-acb","category-ncaa"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>UCLA Lands Serbian Rising Star Nikola Kusturica - Sportando<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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