Mühl opts to spend a summer in Storrs
After Final Four loss, ‘I think this was the best decision for me’
Nika Mühl faced a tough decision this spring with her sophomore season on the Uconn women’s basketball team on the horizon. The 5-foot-10 guard had an opportunity to play with the Croatian national team in Eurobasket, but doing so meant that she wouldn’t be able to attend the
Huskies’ summer session throughout June.
Mühl agonized over it but kept coming back to one thing: Uconn’s Final Four loss to Arizona this past April. With the disappointment from that outing still fresh, Mühl knew she had to return to Storrs.
“Having that on my heart, I think this was the best decision for me right now,” Mühl said. “I just want to get better for my team, honestly, because I don’t want to lose like that next year.”
After emerging as a starter in the
second half of the 2020-21 season, Mühl was hit with a stroke of bad luck at the beginning of the NCAA Tournament, suffering a high ankle sprain during the second quarter of the Huskies’ first-round game against High Point. She managed to take the court for the Arizona game, playing 21 minutes, but was far from 100 percent.
“It was frustrating. There were a lot emotions going on. I was angry, I was sad, I was crying,” Mühl said of her injury. “But at the end of the day, I had to just put a fake smile on and just help my team, support them as much as I can, be there for them.
“I wasn’t back [physically]. I’m still slowly getting back. I’m still not fully back. It was a really hard injury.”
Mühl’s return to the court was further dampened by the result of the Arizona game: a 69-59 loss in which the Huskies admitted they underestimated the Wildcats and were embarrassed by the performance.
“I hate to lose,” Mühl said. “But I think just the way that we lost. We’d been working so hard last year in such a hard environment and everything that was going on, and I don’t think we showed that. That just wasn’t us on the court. So just the way that we lost was heartbreaking.”
Mühl was upset at the time — Auriemma told the
Courant she took the loss “just as hard, if not harder, than anybody else.” Some three months later, she still can’t bring herself to watch the film from that game.
“I refuse to,” Mühl said. “I know Coach is going to hear this and is not going to like it, but I refuse to watch that game. I’m going to watch it eventually, but I’m not ready for it.”
Mühl isn’t trying to entirely ignore what happened in April because she knows to get better, she can’t hide from her weaknesses. After taking a week off when she returned home in the spring to rest her ankle, she was in the gym all day every day until it was time to return to Storrs.
Now a sophomore, Mühl is a year older and wiser than when she first arrived at Uconn last summer like a “bull in a china shop,” as associate head coach Chris Dailey once described. Even though she missed most of Uconn’s NCAA Tournament run with her injury, she also has playing experience in a national semifinal game that she hopes will pay dividends next year.
In the meantime, what’s on her list of areas to improve?
“I wouldn’t say I’m concentrating on one thing,” Mühl said. “I would say everything a little bit because I see how hard it is. Everybody’s getting better, so I feel like it’s my duty and my obligation to just get in the gym and work hard for my team. I’m also doing it for them.”
Mühl earned playing time last season with her defense, physicality and grit. This year, Auriemma has a spoil of riches in the backcourt to tinker with, not just among returners (Mühl, Paige Bueckers, Christyn Williams, Evina Westbrook and Saylor Poffenbarger) but also the newcomers in No. 1 recruit Azzi Fudd and “silent assassin” Caroline Ducharme.
Auriemma and players described a competitive month in Storrs, one where players understood that just because they played a certain amount of minutes last year, they aren’t guaranteed the same this season. Mühl has internalized that message but also knows there’s something bigger the Huskies are fighting for — the same reason she decided to spend June with the Huskies instead of the Croatian national team.
“I think each of us has to fight this year,” Mühl said. “It’s all starting from the beginning, like every year, but I don’t think that’s what’s the first thing for any of us. The important thing for us is to just win. Your participation can be 30 minutes, 20 minutes, 10 minutes, zero minutes. It’s just what you bring, whether that’s energy, scoring. And so you just got to find your little role in which we can help our team win. And I think we’re all going to be fine.”