NCAA Basketball: Top 10 players to wear jersey No. 34 in 2023-24 season

5. Hosana Kitenge (Louisiana)

For Kitenge, who’s originally from England, this has been the breakthrough season of college ball for him. He came to the states way back in 2019 before the pandemic and two less than notable seasons as a bench player at Coastal Carolina. After sitting out a year, he found a new home at Three Rivers College, a non-D1 school in Missouri, before catching on at Louisiana this past offseason. Suffice to say, he fit in well with the Ragin’ Cajuns.

Kitenge averaged 11.9 points and 6.5 rebounds as a full-time starter for Louisiana, clearly having his most productive season of basketball in America. He strongly aided a Ragin’ Cajuns team that won 19 games and scratched out a 5th place finish in the Sun Belt, even nabbing Third Team All-Sun Belt honors for himself. In the process, he stood among the league’s best in rebounds and steals and made quite the impact in his first year in the Sun Belt.

Those first few weeks saw Kitenge start to settle in, but he was quite impactful in the back half of the season. He had a season-high 25 points in a January win at Arkansas State and later had 17 rebounds in a win at Old Dominion.  Though his team scuffled down the stretch, he did drop 23 points against a strong Appalachian State squad and has high expectations for next season with the Ragin’ Cajuns.