Derrick Clark is big on eye contact. To the Metro State men’s basketball coach, it’s a body-language cue that confirms he and the player he is talking to are on the same page.

So Clark couldn’t understand why his new big man, Bounama Keita, wouldn’t look him in the eye when the coach was passing along instructions.

“He’s not a disrespectful kid, and I knew that,” Clark said.

What Clark didn’t know was that Keita, a 6-foot-10 redshirt freshman from Senegal, was actually showing the coach the utmost respect by lowering his eyes when he was being addressed.

“In Senegal, if an older male is talking to you, you don’t make eye contact,” Clark said. “I didn’t know that about his culture. I had to ask questions. That’s why I like guys from different places. You continue to evolve and build harmony and chemistry.”

Clark has learned similar cultural milieus throughout his five-year tenure as the head coach at Metro State. In the past two seasons alone, the Roadrunners have had players from six different countries on their roster. The NCAA Division II power in downtown Denver has become a microcosm of a growing trend in college basketball that has seen international players making a rising impact on the game.

This season, there are 19 foreign-born players on the rosters of Pac-12 schools. The Mountain West also had 18 such players, including Colorado State’s Joe De Ciman (Canada) and Wyoming’s Alexander Aka Gorski (Sweden). CSU’s Gian Clavell was born in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory.

The NBA’s last two No. 1 overall draft picks — Anthony Bennett and Andrew Wiggins — were Canadians who played one season in college before jumping to the draft.

Big contributionsLast season’s NCAA champion, Connecticut, had four foreign-born players. And you’d be hard-pressed to find many ranked teams this season that don’t have at least one international player making a sizable contribution.

“You’re seeing an influx of (international) players now more than ever, that I can remember, coming to the States to play college basketball,” said Fran Fraschilla, an ESPN college basketball analyst who closely monitors the international scene for the network’s NBA draft coverage.

There are a number of reasons for the evolution. For starters, a copycat effect has overseas players trying to walk in the shoes of their countrymen.

At Metro State, former coach Mike Dunlap began a pipeline of Australian recruiting 15 years ago that is still producing talented players at the school.

Seniors Mitch McCarron and Nicholas Kay — two of the four Australians playing for the Roadrunners this season — are averaging 20.5 points apiece this season.

“Coach Clark already has this tradition of foreign players having success there,” Fraschilla said. “So guys will go back to their countries and tell other guys about Metro State. It becomes word of mouth. If they weren’t doing well at Metro State, the Australian pipeline would have dried up by now.”

Sometimes the success of foreign-born players can have a less direct, yet equally impactful, pull on players trying to walk the same path.

Colorado State’s De Ciman, a junior starter averaging 7.6 points, is from Regina, Saskatchewan. He said seeing the recent success of Canadians such as Tristan Thompson and Cory Joseph, who starred at Texas before transitioning into NBA roles, was a catalyst for him wanting to play college basketball in America.

“They are our generation’s players,” De Ciman said. “I think everyone in Canada looks up to Steve Nash, but seeing Tristan and Cory go play in Texas and then make the NBA gave kids a hope that it is a realistic thing to do.”

As college programs find more positive results with their international prospects, they devote more resources to keep the foreign talent flowing.

Fraschilla has run into NBA scouts overseas for years who are monitoring future talent. But in recent seasons, he said, more college staffers are overseas, searching for players who may be interested in playing and getting an education in the United States before signing a pro contract in their home countries.

“(Colleges) are sending more people to Australia and other places to look for recruitable talent now than ever before,” Fraschilla said. “You’ll see a lot of college coaches go to the European championships every summer. You’ll see more colleges at the under-16 and under-18 championships trying to build relationships — with coaches and people who are close to the players — to try to entice them to come to college.”

Of course, playing college basketball in the U.S. wasn’t always as simple for foreign players as securing a passport.

Before 2010, NCAA rules often punished international players who had played in basketball academies with pro players — a normal occurrence across Europe — even if they weren’t being paid.

The governing body has since loosened some of those restrictions, making it easier for coaches to recruit foreign players without worrying about whether they are eligible to play in college.

And that freedom to head to the U.S. has come at a good time for players who are finding fewer opportunities with leagues in their own countries. With Europe experiencing an economic downturn in recent years, Fraschilla said, fewer countries overseas are passing out big contracts to young players.

In most European countries, basketball leagues are similar to Major League Baseball, where teams pay talented players big money and then send them to develop in their minor-league systems.

But those contracts for young players are becoming fewer and smaller, leaving them and their families to look at other options.

“There are less professional opportunities for European players to sign big contracts or get big bonuses,” Fraschilla said. “So some players will go to an academy looking for an opportunity to come to the United States and play in college.”

American opportunityFor the foreign players, coming to the United States as young men gives them opportunities at quality education and experiences that might not exist in the same form in their home country’s.

And the television exposure for American college basketball is second to none. Bounama Keita’s older brother, Baye Moussa Keita, played at Syracuse, and Bounama marveled at being able to see so many of his brother’s games on ESPN.

But colleges are certainly winning out on the international exchange rate, too. It has been particularly beneficial at Metro State when it comes to big men.

Post players, Clark said, are precious commodities in the United States. High school kids who project to push the 6-foot-10 range are gobbled up quickly by recruiters from big schools, even if their talent is far from developed.

That leaves Division II schools such as Metro to either play smaller players inside or search elsewhere for bigs.

“We were able to go over and get size overseas,” said Clark, who has four players 6-9 or taller on his roster from outside the U.S. “So that’s a big part of it.”

Nick Kosmider: 303-954-1516, nkosmider@denverpost.com or twitter.com/nickkosmider

A worldwide game

From defending Division I champion Connecticut to Division II power Metro State, college basketball is full of foreign-born players making big impacts. Denver Post writer Nick Kosmider takes a look at five international players making noise in college basketball today:

Name: Kevin Pangos

From: Holland Landing, Ontario

School: Gonzaga

Class: Senior

The scoop: Few schools recruit foreign players better than coach Mark Few and Gonzaga. Pangos averages 10.8 points and 4.9 assists for the No. 8 Bulldogs, and his offensive efficiency rating is one of the best in the country.

Name: Janari Joesaar From: Tartu, Estonia School: Texas-Pan American Class: Sophomore

The scoop: After spending one season at Mississippi, the 6-foot-6 forward has blossomed as one of the top mid-major players in the country, averaging 18.9 points per game.

Name: Naz Long

From: Mississauga, Ontario

School: Iowa State

Class: Junior

The scoop: After performing nicely as the sixth man during Iowa State’s run to the Sweet 16 last season, Long is the Cyclones’ third-leading scorer as a starter this season at 12.8 points per game.

Name: Jakob Poeltl

From: Vienna

School: Utah

Class: Freshman

The scoop: In his first year at Utah, 7-foot Austrian Poeltl has shown flashes of dominance while appearing in the first round of some NBA mock drafts. He’s averaging nearly a double-double with 10.5 points and 8.6 rebounds per game.

Name: Amida Brimah

From: Accra, Ghana

School: Connecticut

Class: Sophomore

The scoop: As a freshman, Brimah was a role player on the Huskies’ title-winning team. This season, the 7-footer has been a major contributor with averages of 12.2 points and 2.8 blocked shots per game.