Columbia University first-year guard Keijuro Matsui became the first Japanese to appear in a NCAA Division I basketball game when he played against the University of New Hampshire on Friday.
Matsui started for Colombia in the NCAA invitational tournament and played for 18 minutes with one assist as Columbia beat New Hampshire 64-61.
According to the university, no Japanese had played in an NCAA Division I game.
Shinko Ono was the first Japanese to play women's college basketball in the United States from 1998 to 2002 at University of Evansville in Indiana.
The Tokyo native moved to the United States when he was 12 after he was scouted at a basketball clinic in Japan and attended Montrose Christian High School in Rockville, Md., where he became a shooting guard.