Leader of the pack

Mühl growing into reliable asset for Huskies

The Mühl family often took their daughters to the nearby park in their home city of Zagreb, Croatia.

Parents Darko and Roberta would place their youngest, Hana, in the sandpit and give her a few toys to entertain herself.

Their oldest daughter, Nika, on the other hand, always made park time a game of chase — whether her parents knew it or not.

“As a little child, I would always find something funny and exciting in running away from them,” Nika said Monday. “So when they were not looking, I would just like go off running. I didn’t really know where. I didn’t really know how I was gonna get back, I would just go off running.”

As Nika ran, joyfully giggling and screaming, her parents were always left frantic, chasing her while trying to corral her away from cars.

“She was a handful at a very, very early age,” Darko said. “She wouldn’t sit in one place for 10 seconds. She was just like that basically since she was a little kid. Too much energy.”

All these years later, Nika is still that energetic.

Instead of running away from her parents at parks, she’s weaving in and out of defenders on the court, chasing and diving after every loose ball. Her aggressiveness is shown in her physicality, ripping balls away mid-dribble from opponents and continually sparking her UConn women’s basketball teammates.

Off the court, the 2022 Big East Defensive Player of the Year is still that same genuine kid she was many years ago when she ran through the parks of Zagreb. She’s matured and grown through her first two collegiate seasons on the court, but it’s her priority in the relationships she’s made along the way with the people who support her the most that have made the soon-to-be junior ready for her upperclassman years.

Jessica Hill / Associated Press UConn’s Nika Mühl in the first half of a game in the Big East tournament quarterfinals at Mohegan Sun Arena on March 5.