'Balkan Five' Fuel Illinois Hoops

Saturday Edition

April 4, 2026

The men’s Final Four is here, and one of the big stories is the Illini roster. The program is now known as one full of clients from basketball agent Miško Ražnatović—who also represents Nikola Jokić—has turned a campus in middle America into a hotbed for European prospects.

—Alex Schiffer and Amanda Christovich

First Up

South Carolina knocked out UConn to make the women’s title game, and now Geno Auriemma and Dawn Staley have beef. Read the story.
UConn’s Braylon Mullins will wait until the end of the Huskies’ season before cashing in on his three-point dagger against Duke. Read the story.
Cross Tommy Lloyd’s name off the list of targets for North Carolina. The Arizona coach agreed to a new five-year deal with the Wildcats. Read the story.
At the women’s Final Four in Phoenix, not every coach and player was jumping to quickly usher in a new era of college player eligibility for the WNBA. Read the story.

How Nikola Jokić’s Agent Became the Talent Supplier for Illinois Basketball

Jeffrey Becker-Imagn Images

One of Europe’s most prominent basketball agents has a personal stake in this weekend’s Final Four.

Actually, it’s four stakes.

Illinois will face Connecticut on Saturday night in its first Final Four appearance in more than 20 years thanks to the “Balkan Five,” five Illini players who all hail from the southeastern European region.

Four of the five are represented by Serbian agent Miško Ražnatović. And none are Ražnatović’s most famous clients. He represents Nuggets star and three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokić, a native of Serbia.

As the NBA has become more international (the past seven MVPs all hail from outside the U.S.), Illinois has followed the league’s lead. “The best players in the NBA now are European,” Illinois coach Brad Underwood said in the fall. “We’re following a trend.”

While the Lakers have had Klutch Sports clients over the years alongside LeBron James and the Knicks boast a roster full of CAA clients, Illinois boasts a roster full of Ražnatović’s players.

The “Balkan Five” consists of 7-foot twin brothers Tomislav and Zvonimir Ivišić (Croatia); David Mirković (Montenegro); Andrej Stojaković (Greece), the son of Serbian three-time NBA All-Star Peja Stojaković; and Mihailo Petrović (Serbia). Ražnatović represents all of them except Stojaković.

All of his clients came to Illinois sight unseen. Ražnatović has never stepped on the Champaign, Ill., campus to see his players, nor does he plan to.

“I read articles that many American players and even some in Europe are going to visit one, two, three, four universities before they make decisions,” Ražnatović told Front Office Sports. “Not even one of my guys did a visit. Why should they visit? To see what the campus looks like? To see what the locker room looks like? This isn’t important. For any particular player, you analyze the basketball situation. If the basketball situation is good, then you go.”

Ražnatović said his clients don’t know enough about American schools to make decisions beyond the basketball component. When Luka Bogavac, another client of his who also hails from Montenegro, committed to North Carolina, “he only knew that Michael Jordan once played for the team.”

Ražnatović got connected to Illinois through assistant coach Orlando Antigua. A longtime lieutenant of John Calipari at Kentucky and Arkansas, Antigua recruited Zvonimir Ivišić to Kentucky in 2023. He followed the coaches to Arkansas and then transferred to Illinois a year ago, with his twin brother joining him.

Antigua worked with Ražnatović on Zvonimir’s recruitment and kept going back to him for more players after impressing Underwood. “He was the key,” Ražnatović said of Antigua.

The Illini roster would look a lot different if it weren’t for recent NCAA rule changes. Before 2023, players who played professionally overseas weren’t NCAA eligible. But the governing body loosened its definition of amateurism in light of NIL, paving the way for Europeans to come across the pond en masse to college basketball.

While other schools have sought G League and Overtime Elite players as a result, the Illini have gone all in on European prospects, adding Croatian Toni Bilić in December. Bilić is redshirting this season.

“In Europe young guys are not getting enough minutes to play, so it stalls their development,” Ražnatović told FOS. “When this opportunity showed up it was really something to be considered.”

Ražnatović now represents 26 college basketball players, but plans to have close to 40 next season. He’s also using Illinois’s success as a way to get more schools to copy their model.

“Now Illinois is very popular,” Ražnatović says. “First because of the Final Four, second because of having so many players from the Balkan area. It makes for an easier adjustment. After what happened at Illinois, I’m really trying to, when I speak with teams, convince them to have at least two guys. It’s not necessary to have five or six like Illinois, but if you have two, you have someone to adjust with and they perform much better. Next season, I think you’ll see more package deals.”

Ražnatović isn’t just selling package deals. He’s also pushing schools to look into hiring coaches from the country. In 1999, Igor Kokoškov—another Ražnatović client—became the first European-born assistant in NCAA history when he joined Quin Snyder’s staff at Missouri. But Snyder hired Kokoškov more for player development than recruiting. Kokoškov went on to become the first European-born NBA head coach when the Suns hired him in 2018. Almost 30 years later, maybe more coaches will now follow Snyder’s idea now that the region is a hotbed for talent.

“I believe it’s also good for the college because guys perform better,” Ražnatović says. “I’ve said to schools, if you want guys from this area, you should take an assistant from this area.”

What Ražnatović finds most impressive about Illinois is it has done this all while barely playing Petrović, who he said is among the most talented players he’s represented.

“They made the Final Four practically without using the best Yugoslavian player,” Ražnatović said. “He’s not getting minutes, but he’s a big-time player.”

Results That Show Up on the Scoreboard

At EY Consulting, we work with organizations that play to win. Whether it’s making smarter decisions with AI, building resilience through technology, or executing bold strategies under pressure, we help our clients turn ambition into measurable outcomes.

Like any winning team, we know success isn’t claimed—it’s earned. And when the pressure’s on, it’s not ideas or intentions that matter most. It’s what shows up on the scoreboard. From strategy to execution, across every industry—we deliver.

Proof, not promises. That’s EY Consulting.

Let’s shape the game together.

Learn more here.

Visa Loopholes Enable International College Players to Cash In

Mar 28, 2026; San Jose, CA, USA; Arizona Wildcats forward Ivan Kharchenkov (8) celebrates after an Elite Eight game against the Purdue Boilermakers of the West Regional of the men's 2026 NCAA Tournament at SAP Center

Kyle Terada-Imagn Images

INDIANAPOLIS — All four men’s programs at the Final Four this year have at least one thing in common: They’ve invested in international players.

Along with the “Balkan Five” of Illinois, Arizona’s starting five features two international players: Ivan Kharchenkov from Germany and Motiejus Krivas from Lithuania. Michigan starts Spanish-born Aday Mara; UConn has multiple international players on the bench.

The NCAA grants international players eligibility despite playing professionally overseas, given that many begin playing professionally at much younger ages than American players do. The rule has helped facilitate the influx, but that wasn’t enough to entice top prospects. In order to lure away fortified stars from the international pro leagues, especially in Europe, schools had to offer payments. Now that’s possible due to revenue-sharing and NIL.

“I think there’s always been tremendous intrigue in coming to the States and playing college basketball,” Illinois head coach Brad Underwood said Friday in response to a question from Front Office Sports. “I think that is heightened by what’s gone on in the portal and NIL—and I think it’s all been very, very positive.”

But in recruiting these foreign heavyweights, schools faced a problem: U.S. immigration laws, which pose major restrictions on what type of compensation, if any, players on student visas can earn. And to date, U.S. immigration services still have not offered any guidance on if or how college athletes can benefit from NIL and revenue-sharing payments without running afoul of student visa restrictions.

Despite the lingering uncertainties, for many players, the risk is worth the reward. So immigration lawyers have found a few loopholes that schools across the country have deployed to ensure their international players could cash in and avoid the ire of immigration services.

“College basketball is the best spot,” Illinois freshman David Mirković, who hails from Montenegro, said in response to a question from FOS on Friday. “You come here to improve yourself as a basketball player. As a person, it’s probably the best place. I think it’s going to be more and more kids coming.”

Read the full story.

The 2026 NCAA men’s championship winner will be revealed Monday. Can you rank the top five NCAA men’s basketball teams by most all-time tournament berths?

Written by Alex Schiffer, Amanda Christovich

Edited by Dennis Young, Meredith Turits, Catherine Chen