Former New Mexico State women’s basketball coach Jody Adams made international players an important part of her recruitment strategy. Her successor has taken that to a new level.
The Aggies announced their first signing class under new coach Adeniyi Amadou on Tuesday, June 23. It includes 11 newcomers, of which six are transfers, and five are freshmen.
All five freshmen are from Amadou’s native France. Four of the six transfers are also French, with two others hailing from Serbia and Latvia. Guard Emma Christiano, a Las Cruces native, is the only returner and NM State’s only American player as of now.
Amadou is no stranger to recruiting internationally. Three of the four transfers that are from France were recruited by Amadou to Rhode Island while he was an associate head coach for the Rams. Two of those three, forward Aimee Michel and center Lilyana Fontcha, entered the transfer portal with do-not-contact tags, a designation that typically signifies a player already has a destination in mind.
Guards Eva Hamlil and Sena Sert, and forwards Imane Loubibet, Justine Mouyokolo and Julia Saillard make up the quintet of freshmen that will join NM State.
Hamlil won the 2026 U18 Coupe de France with Flammes Carolo Basket and was MVP of the final after scoring 19 points. Sert last played for Aulnoye-Aymeries in France’s LF2 league and tallied 31 minutes in five games played during the 2025-26 season. Loubibet last played for Bourges Basket.
Mouyokolo last played for Strasbourg Illkirch-Graffenstaden in the LF2 during the 2025-26 season, where she shot 42.1% from the field and averaged 7.2 points and 3.9 rebounds per game. Saillard last played for FCL Feytiat Basket in the LF2, averaging 24 minutes across six games.
Fontcha, Michel and guard/forward Eva Agba all followed Amadou from URI to NM State. None of the three played much for the Rams and all averaged fewer than 10 minutes per game. Michel played in 27 games but logged more than 10 minutes in only six of them. At 6-foot-4, Fontcha is the Aggies’ tallest player.
Texas A&M transfer guard Talia Kavoka will look for any opportunity in Las Cruces after failing to score a single point across 49 minutes in 10 games played last season. Kavoka possesses an international pedigree, having represented France at the 2024 FIBA U17 Women’s Basketball World Cup and the 2023 FIBA U16 Women’s European Championship. She averaged a team-high 2.6 assists per game in the former and was part of the squad that won the latter.
Guard Raina Tomasicka also hasn’t played many minutes, but her 12.1 minutes-per-game mark for South Florida last season suggests she wasn’t glued to the bench as much as the French transfers. She even won American Conference Player of the Week on Dec. 1 after scoring 14 points against Harvard and 21 points against New Orleans.
Guard Jana Vesic has actually tallied notable minutes. She played 30 games for Seattle last season, starting 14 of them and averaging 28.3 minutes per game. Vesic averaged 8.3 points per game on a 40.1% shooting clip and scored in double figures 14 times. She was part of the Serbian team that finished third at the 2024 FIBA U18 Women’s Eurobasket tournament.
Christiano gives the Aggies at least some local flavor, and she’ll also be the lone remnant from the Adams era.
The 5-foot-3 guard started 18 games of the 30 games she played last season and averaged 23.4 minutes per game. While Christiano only averaged 2.9 points per game, she shot 40.9% from the field and ranked second among NM State players with a 37.5% 3-point mark. Christiano also recorded a team-high 80 assists.
Only one of the Aggies’ six transfers has played as many minutes in a collegiate season as Christiano, which will make her experience valuable in Amadou’s first season.
This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: NMSU’s Adeniyi Amadou unveils 11-woman international signing class
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