Utah basketball is getting its shot to impress one of the top international prospects in the 2027 class.
Serbian wing Matija Lukic will be on campus Sunday, Nov. 8, for an official visit, coming off a stop at BYU the day before. His schedule is packed: seven official visits in eight days, with Boston College, Duke, N.C.
State, North Carolina, UConn and Utah all on the itinerary. The tour started Nov. 1, according to Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress.
For Alex Jensen and his staff, Lukic’s visit is more than just another recruiting stop. It’s a chance to show how Utah wants to operate on the international trail, and Jensen made clear Wednesday that he sees Europe as a major lane for the program.
“I truly believe this is a place the European kids have come and liked and enjoyed, at the college level or even at the professional level,” Jensen said. “So I think it’s going to be huge for us.”
Lukic gives that idea some real substance. He’s currently playing for Casademont Zaragoza in Spain and helped Serbia win silver at this summer’s FIBA U17 World Cup. In that event, he put up 16.1 points, 4.4 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game while shooting 50% from the field and 41.9% from 3-point range.
His best work showed up when the pressure rose. Lukic scored 27 points against Lithuania in the quarterfinals, adding six rebounds, four assists, three steals and two blocks. He followed that with 20 points against Turkey in the semifinals, then closed the tournament with 16 points, seven rebounds and four assists against the United States in the championship game.
The shooting numbers are especially eye-catching. He knocked down 18 of 43 tries from deep across the seven-game tournament, including four of six against the Americans. That kind of perimeter production is exactly what makes him such an appealing wing - a player who can space the floor and score without dominating the ball every trip down.
His profile has only kept rising. Lukic was named MVP of the NBA’s Basketball Without Borders Next Up camp in Istanbul, where 78 prospects from 44 countries and territories were in attendance. More recently, he exploded for 38 points in the championship game of an adidas NextGen EuroLeague pre-qualifying tournament in Rijeka.
He’s also already seen action against older competition, appearing for Zaragoza in the FIBA Europe Cup against senior professionals.
Utah is hardly alone in the chase. Duke, North Carolina and UConn are all part of the mix, which means Jensen’s staff will need to sell more than just a campus visit. Still, Utah does have something valuable working in its favor: relationships.
“I think because of who they are and where they’ve been, we get into a lot of conversations we might not otherwise do,” Jensen said of his assistants on the recruiting trail. “There’s always the balance of the money and the fit and how the pieces fit together.”
That balance is going to matter in this recruitment. The Utes can lean on trust and familiarity, but Lukic will also want to see a clear development path and a role that makes sense for what comes next.
Jensen said those European ties will remain central to how Utah recruits.
“And I think just because of my staff, it’s a little more streamlined,” Jensen said. “So yeah, it’s going to be big to us, just like local kids.”
Getting Lukic on campus is one thing. Landing him would be another level entirely. But Sunday gives Utah a real chance to make its case against some of the biggest names in college basketball.
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