French Guard Ilane Fibleuil Signs With UCLA Men's Basketball

The dynamic international prospect is officially a Bruin, nearly seven weeks after he made his commitment public.

Over a month after he verbally committed, the Bruins have locked down one of their elite international recruits.

French shooting guard Ilane Fibleuil has signed a grant-in-aid with UCLA men's basketball, the team announced Wednesday evening. The 6-foot-7 wing had been pledged to the Bruins since April 13, but was only able to get his eligibility squared away seven weeks later.

Fibleuil, who was also being courted by Gonzaga and the NBA G-League, was previously playing with Pole France in Nationale Masculine 1 – the country's third-tier division of professional club basketball.

𝙒𝙚𝙡𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙒𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙬𝙤𝙤𝙙, 𝙄𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙚.

The Bruins have signed Ilane Fibleuil (@IFibleuil10), a talented 6-foot-7 guard from France who will be a freshman in 2023-24.

🏀🖊️: https://t.co/k5xCtfgrhi pic.twitter.com/Ke8qp1mKsv

— UCLA Men’s Basketball (@UCLAMBB) May 31, 2023

This season, Fibleuil averaged 10.2 points, 3.3 rebounds, 1.2 assists and 1.2 steals in 23.5 minutes per game while putting up .346/.251/.621 shooting splits. The wing put up double-digit points in 10 of his first 15 appearances, scoring a season-high 20 against Vendée Challans Basket back on Oct. 28.

Fibleuil averaged 12.9 points, 5.9 rebounds and 1.9 steals in 19.7 minutes per game for France at the 2022 FIBA U17 World Cup, shooting 60.3% from the field and 61.5% from deep in the tournament.

The last time the Bruins reeled in a player from France was when they got power forward Jerome Moiso back in 1998. Moiso averaged 12.0 points, 6.8 rebounds, 1.3 blocks and 1.0 steals per game across two seasons at UCLA before going in the first round of the 2000 NBA Draft.

Fibleuil is a product of the National Institute of Sport, Expertise and Performance in Paris, which was also the starting point for Tony Parker, Evan Fournier, Boris Diaw, Clint Capela, Ronny Turiaf and Joel Ayiyi.

“Ilane is a 6-foot-7 wing guard with great length and athleticism,” coach Mick Cronin said in a statement. “We saw him at last year’s FIBA U-17 World Cup in Spain, where he was a first-team all-tournament selection, and we’ve been recruiting him hard since then. Ilane has great potential as a two-way player. He can shoot and slash and he defends at a high level with great anticipation skills. Ilane is a high-character young man from a great family, and he is a perfect fit for our program.”

Fibleuil is rated as a four-star recruit by 247Sports, ESPN and On3. In the 247Sports Composite, Fibleuil is ranked as the No. 18 shooting guard in the country and No. 120 player in his class, but 247Sports' own rankings have him pegged at No. 3 for his position and No. 39 overall.

The Bruins' international recruiting has exploded since they hired assistant coach Ivo Simovic in June 2022. Italian guard/forward Abramo Canka signed on in August, and although Turkish big man Ege Demir was ultimately unable to enroll, he reportedly committed to UCLA in September.

Simovic ran point for the recruitments of five-star small forward Andrej Stojakovic and four-star power forward Milan Momcilovic before they committed elsewhere, and his Serbian roots played a key role in the Bruins adding Utah transfer Lazar Stefanovic on April 8.

UCLA got a commitment from Slovenian combo guard Jan Vide on May 22, bringing additional international flavor to the Bruins' backcourt alongside Fibleuil and Stefanovic.

The frontcourt – which already features Nigerian big man Kenneth Nwuba and Turkish center Adem Bona – could be getting reinforcements from overseas in the near future as well. Spanish center Aday Mara has been strongly tied to UCLA for months, and another publicly unnamed European prospect could also be coming down the pipeline.

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