When the announcement came that young French basketball star Marine Dursus was on her way to UConn, one of the first to introduce her to U.S. basketball felt pretty good about it.
“I just like immediately smiled,” said Cinnamon Lister, the NBA’s Elite Women’s Basketball lead. “I work closely with (UConn assistant coach) Morgan Valley and their staff. When I saw the announcement, I just got really excited and it was like, ‘yes, perfect fit.’”
Advertisement
In her role, Lister oversees personnel and operations for the women’s Basketball Without Borders camps, and she selected Dursus, and her soon-to-be teammate Jovana Popovic and Blanca Quinonez to compete in BWB camps in 2024.
Dursus, who committed and signed with UConn last Friday, is a 5-foot-10 shooting guard with an all-around game, the kind of player who could help the program as it attempts to fill the immense void left by the departure of Azzi Fudd. As Geno Auriemma continues to go global in finding talent to keep the Huskies in the thick of the national championship hunt, Lister, whose sister, Jasmine, was a grad assistant at UConn from 2014-16, offered some vivid descriptions of the newest member of the team.
UConn women’s basketball reaches into international market to land this top shooting guard
“What stood out to me about (Dursus) was her ball skills,” said Cinnamon, who has been a coach at the collegiate and WNBA level. “Her ability to handle the ball, shoot the ball and do it at a very elite level. She has an uncanny way of reading closeouts before they actually happen, so she’s able to see if someone’s dribbling towards her to push and how the defender’s about to close out, whether she puts it on the floor or if she’s gonna shoot it or pull up, and her pull-up game is really nice. So the way that she anticipates ball movement off the ball, and when to pull up, when to cut, if the defender’s helping up the line. Little details like that, I just really liked to watch because it’s a team sport. She does a really good job of just playing the game that’s supposed to be played, which is to play together.”
Advertisement
So, yes, the 20-year-old Dursus sounds like Auriemma’s type of player. She was born in Strasbourg, in the French-German border region. She is playing for Angers Basket, a French pro team, averaging 9.9 points per game, shooting 52.9 percent from the floor, 41.2 percent on threes. Her French under-20 team won the Euro championship in 2024, and she scored 17 in the final game. It wasn’t clear when she was in Phoenix whether she wanted to play college basketball in the U.S. or stay overseas until ready to try the WNBA. She averaged 13.8 points, 4.2 rebounds for her team in EuroBasket. Auriemma has noted her “natural ability to score.”
Dursus is “shy” away from the court, with a “a little bounce, a little swagger” on it, Lister said, yet she reminds her of that Mount Rushmore UConn figure, Diana Taurasi.
“She leads quietly,” Lister said. “She’s not the most vocal, she carries this calm demeanor similar to (Taurasi). I know people always want to compare other players to Diana, but I worked with Dee in Phoenix as an assistant coach (with the Mercury) and so she has similar tendencies on the way that she carries herself. She just leads quietly and, maybe one day vocally it’ll come out. She’s a good teammate at the end of the day and wants to win.”
Basketball Without Borders camps have helped develop 19 future WNBA players. In her talent-evaluation role with the NBA/WNBA, Lister has worked with former Huskies Nika Muhl and Aaliyah Edwards, current Huskies Jana El Alfy and Quinonez, as well as the incoming freshman Popovic and Dursus, and she has not surprised any of them ended up at UConn.
Advertisement
“From my perspective, Geno seems to be attracted to just good humans and great basketball players,” Lister said. “And I think he does a phenomenal job of putting pieces together, him and his staff. I think it just happened to be international players that have done that, but I think he just is attracted to anybody that is so passionate about the game, winning, being a good human and just having fun at the same time. You know, he wants to grow, too, and I think he learns a lot from these athletes while he’s going through it.”
‘A silent assassin’: What Serbian guard Jovana Popovic brings to UConn women basketball’s 2026 class
Popovic, 5-8, from Serbia, participated in the Basketball Without Borders event in Spain in 2024, where she was named MVP among the 30 players from 23 countries competing.
“She’s got a knack for like finding avenues in the paint and creating for herself, creating for others,” Lister said. “Similar to Marine, Jovana anticipates ball movement on the perimeter, when to push and pull up, when to cut, when to lead. She doesn’t always have to have the ball in her hands as a point guard, she’s OK with other people creating and then knowing, ‘OK, 10 seconds left on the shot clock and I’ve got to have the ball in my hands or I need to come back to the ball and push it in transition and get to the cup.’ So she can score and she can also create. It’s just about whatever is best for the team, that’s what she is looking to do and she wants to share it. So she plays unselfish and, yeah, she’s got a look in her eye that’s similar to Nika Muhl, defensively, like on her on-ball defense and off-ball. She’s just so active and has the longer limbs to get deflections, so you’ll see her as a true two-way player. Super competitive, so that she’s going to be a fun one for UConn to work with.”
Advertisement
Quinonez, the Big East freshman and Sixth Player of the Year for the Huskies, averaged 10.1 points per game despite playing most of the year with a shoulder injury that required postseason surgery. Quinonez, from Ecuador, was playing with a pro team in Italy before coming to UConn.
“I watched every game she played,” Lister said. “And she’s going be great, she’s a great player, she’s going to be a phenom. It’s been great to see her have an impact in the way that she’s had an impact coming in. That’s challenging to come in as a freshman from an an international market. It was awesome to see her blossom in that role.”
It’s a challenge, for sure, but UConn has identified a number of players who have proven up to it.
“What makes (Dursus) unique, like Blanca, Jovana Popovic and all these international players, is that they’ve lived by themselves. They’ve had to, they’ve had to figure things out at a young age and then adapt and figure out what they like and what they don’t like, so I think she’s gonna fit in perfectly with them because she’s had to provide for herself, with her family and everybody supporting her (from afar), but she’s had to do it just creates a good standpoint for going into the college ranks.”
