When Dawn Staley adds a player, there’s always a reason. With Justine Loubens, the numbers tell the story better than any recruiting ranking ever could.
Loubens doesn’t arrive with a five-star designation or a viral highlight reel. What she brings is something increasingly rare in the college basketball landscape — a documented, multi-year track record of elite production across some of the most competitive international stages in the world. And when you lay those numbers out in sequence, a picture emerges of a player who has consistently delivered at every level she’s been asked to compete at.
Staley made her evaluation clear from the moment the signing was announced.
“We’re excited to bring Justine into our Gamecock family,” she said. “She is one of the best shooters coming out of France, and her experience playing for her club and national teams have helped prepare her for the SEC battles to come.”
That phrase — one of the best shooters coming out of France — isn’t flattery. It’s a scouting report. And the statistical record backs it up entirely.
Start with her most recent professional season at La Roche Vendée Basket Club, where Loubens shot 63.9% from the field across 24 games while averaging 6.5 points and 2.5 rebounds. That shooting efficiency number isn’t a fluke born from limited attempts or soft competition — it is consistent with a career pattern of remarkable accuracy under pressure. At the club level, she was already operating as a professional, not a developing prospect.
Trace that efficiency back through her international career and the consistency becomes even more striking. At the 2025 FIBA U18 Eurobasket — just last summer — Loubens averaged 7.6 points and 2.7 rebounds on 49.0% shooting. A year before that, at the 2024 FIBA U17 World Cup, she emerged as France’s top scorer at 11.3 points per game while converting an extraordinary 52.0% of her three-point attempts. Go back further still to the 2023 FIBA U16 European Championships, and the production remains steady: 6.8 points and 3.5 rebounds per game.
What that progression reveals is a player who didn’t just show up and perform once on the international stage — she performed repeatedly, across three consecutive years of FIBA competition, at escalating levels of difficulty. The three-point shooting figure from the U17 World Cup is particularly worth highlighting. Hitting 52% from beyond the arc at any level is exceptional. Doing it against the best under-17 players from across the globe is genuinely elite.
The familiarity factor adds another dimension to this signing. Loubens arrives at South Carolina with an existing connection to 6-foot-7 center Alicia Tournebize, her current Gamecock teammate. The two played alongside each other in FIBA competition representing France’s junior national teams, meaning the adjustment period that typically slows international additions is already shortened. They share a basketball language, a competitive history, and the kind of trust that takes most teammates an entire season to build.
Taken together, this isn’t a developmental gamble. This is a proven international shooter with professional experience, a FIBA résumé that spans three years, and a pre-built relationship with the roster she’s joining. In the context of what Staley is building for 2026-27, Loubens fits the blueprint perfectly — not as a headliner, but as the kind of precise, efficient contributor who makes championship rosters deeper, more dangerous, and harder to gameplan against.
