The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Pointing the way
How UConn’s Mühl channeled her emotions to become one of the program’s most productive point guards
Nika Mühl didn’t check into the game during the first half. Nor did she go in when Aubrey Griffin got into foul trouble or when the game was tied early in the fourth quarter and came down to the wire.
She sat on the bench the whole game. She watched teammates sitting on either side of her get up and check in and return moments later sweaty and out of breath. Not once did she even take off her warmup shirt.
Mühl wasn’t injured or sick that day her freshman year. UConn women’s basketball’s head coach Geno Auriemma benched Mühl to teach her a lesson. It didn’t matter it was a rival game at Tennessee. He needed her to grow up.
The game became a turning point in the her career at UConn. The first challenge of many Auriemma would ask of his backup point guard. A challenge to control her emotions to work with him, instead of against.
And Mühl exceeded all expectations.
She has stepped up when needed and developed into the one of the program’s most productive point guards of all time. It’s a journey no one quite saw coming, nor likely would have happened if the Huskies hadn’t gone through three years of injury turmoil.
Mühl has learned how to channel her emotions and use them to fuel her passion.
She is less than 30 assists away from sweeping all of UConn’s program assists records, already owning its single-game (15) and single-season (284) marks and its assists per game record too (5.14).
Friday, Mühl announced on social media she will forgo her last year if eligibility and enter the WNBA draft, and the point guard’s growth over the last four years has not only made her a better basketball player, but a stronger leader.
“I’ve never been in a situation with so much pressure, so many eyes looking at you, especially in this program where everybody expects perfection, excellence, wins,” Mühl said. “And that’s what I kind of learned to expect for myself too
and my team. It’s just been a roller coaster of a ride and I’m proud of myself and I’m proud of my teammates for trusting me.”
‘She doesn’t look very nice’
Darko Mühl, Nika’s father, laughs when asked if his oldest daughter is good at lying. Hana, Nika’s younger sister, is quick to say it was always Nika who got caught being untruthful because either her facial expression would give it away or she’d end up laughing, unable to keep up the facade for long.
Growing up in Croatia, Hana says Nika’s emotions were “all over the place.” Her face always giving away her feelings. Angry, sad or happy; you could always read her feelings instantly. While Hana says Nika’s stubbornness comes from Darko, the girls’ dad says Nika’s strong emotions comes from growing up in the European culture.
It’s on the court where those emotions overcome her.
There’s her frustrated look that she shows when she’s arguing a call with a referee. Her eyebrows crunched together, and her arms thrown up in defense of the foul. There’s the visible meanness in her locked-in and focused stare on defense. Or the exuberance and joy in her face when she celebrates a big play on offense. Her fist clinched at her sides, her screams of passion loud for all to hear.
There are also the moments of sadness. Tears streamed down Nika’s face last month during Senior Night when UConn played a montage of her best moments on the video board at Gampel Pavilion. She cried two Senior Night’s ago when Dorka Juhász was honored, holding a tissue just to
keep her composure.
To Hana, who played against Nika this winter when UConn hosted Ball State, it’s Nika’s face on defense that resonates the most. She’s watched all her sister’s games and played against, and with her, too many times to not have it memorized.
“When I have her in front of me in a defensive stance, I just get freaked out,” Hana told CT Insider. “When people she’s playing against are playing offense against her, like I’m sure they are scared because they know how good of a player she is and just the way she looks can scare them. She doesn’t look very nice.”
Too many times, though, Nika’s emotions got the best of her. She’d get annoyed at plays not going the right way and get too physical, resulting in a cycle where she’d get called for fouls — only adding to her anger. There were other times in practice when her stubbornness prevented Auriemma from getting through to her.
Yet, it’s in those emotions her passion for the game becomes evident.
“I would say it’s served me a lot, especially when it came to like proving other people wrong or proving myself wrong,” Nika said. “But Coach always used to say that’s my biggest strength and my biggest weakness.
“It’s been a weakness in many aspects in which I didn’t look at things rationally or I just didn’t hold myself accountable or just from being a leader, from that standpoint. You can’t be a leader and be stubborn. You need to think about people around. You need to think about your team, what your team needs. Not what you want. So, I feel like it’s definitely not helped me in that aspect. But it’s also helped me learn to not be like that.”
Learning how to control one’s emotions, especially mid-game when everything is going 1,000 miles a minute, is hard. It takes patience and calmness. Nika learned how to channel her emotions into playing smarter on the court. And from the Tennessee game her freshman year, she knows Auriemma won’t stand for anything less.
“Now when she gets mad like that madness, she will turn into like playing defense,” Hana said. “Or like if she gets happy and hyped when they score a 3, she will turn that energy into the next offense and be even better.”
Added Darko: “Because she’s super emotional, when she’s focused everything is good. But it’s hard to be so cool and calm and focused if you’re not that. It’s a learning curve.”
Point guard royalty
Before the 2022-23 season began, Auriemma
gave Nika an ultimatum. She would become the Huskies’ starting point guard with Paige Bueckers out for the year with an ACL injury. But he told Nika that if she couldn’t handle it, he’d do what he did at Tennessee and “bench her ass.”
“I feel like, once you start realizing that all the people around you are constantly repeating the same thing, telling you, ‘Hey, you need to be less stubborn. It’s going to help. It’s going to help us. It’s going to help you.’ Nobody can help you until you realize yourself,” Nika said. “It’s just how it works. And it’s taken me a while and I’m not saying I’m still there. I’m definitely not. That’s still my biggest weakness, for sure.
“But the progress that I’ve made has been tremendous. And I’m proud of myself for that and I’m thankful to Coach especially because he’s been the main reason why I’ve been progressing and changing in that aspect.”
Nika rose to the challenge last year. She did more than just step in for Bueckers. She led UConn every game. Teammates listened to her voice on the court and let her energy set the tone.
Her assists are proof. Nika knows when to perfectly time a pass between defenders’ legs or when to launch the ball across half court to reach her teammates in time and avoid the hands of defenders. Her court vision improved as she’s slowed down to process.
Nika surpassed Bueckers’ record for most assists in a single game. She passed Sue Bird for most assists in a single season and also has a better assist-to-turnover ratio than Bird and Katie Lou Samuelson. Currently, the only players above Nika on UConn’s all-time career assist list are Jennifer Rizzotti, Diana Taurai and Moriah Jefferson.
She’s earned her spot
among UConn guard royalty.
“It’s pretty hard to imagine when she first got here that she would ever be in that conversation,” Auriemma said. “And what makes it even more amazing is that other group, how many Olympians were they passing the ball to? Every possession. A bunch. Half the Olympic team. So, it’s pretty easy to get 200 assists when every time the ball leaves your hand is going to an Olympian. So, for Nika to not necessarily have had that opportunity, I think it’s quite remarkable.”
But whether it’s because she’s still living it or because she’s made a decision about her future, it’s hard for Nika to stop and appreciate the moment.
“I look at myself and I’m just like, ‘I have so much more to work on and I have so much more to just prove to myself and prove to my team and prove to others, mainly to myself,’ ” she said. “So, I feel like it’s more humbling than like me being proud of myself. I would say just being in the company of those names and everything, I’m like, ‘Wow, I’m not even close. I need to work harder.’ ”
The senior is prouder of her emotional growth.
She saw the way her stubbornness and emotions were affecting the team and wanted to be better.
“Just getting away from not being overly emotional when things don’t go your way or being too emotional when things go your way,” she said. “I feel like I’ve kind of had to find that middle ground, that straight line. And it’s hard when you’re an emotional person, which I really am. So just with the help of people around me, I feel like I’ve kind of found that calmness. And I still you know, go up and down sometimes don’t get me wrong, but it’s definitely progress.”
point
During a recent practice, she watched Jana El Alfy begin cussing in Arabic after missing three shots in a row. Nika sees how UConn’s other international players also get frustrated and emotional when making mistakes. She teaches them how to find control and use it to their advantage.
“I remember myself freshman year when I was cussing in Croatian and everybody was just looking at me like, ‘What is going on?’ ” Nika said. “I’ll look at myself now and I’m like, I don’t have those reactions anymore. I kind of know how to just forget about that last thing and focus on the next thing.”
Nika doesn’t yet see herself as one of UConn’s greatest point guards.
The Husky legends she’s admired for so long, she’s already surpassed on record sheets. None of them have had the four years in Storrs that she did. None of them have had to put the team on their back due to mass team injuries like she did. And none came from as far away as she did.
“It’s like crazy what she has accomplished because not a lot of girls get the opportunity to do that and especially Croatian girls,” Hana said. “So, like seeing her doing all of this is, just makes me so so proud because I know how hard she worked.”
Nika sees assists as more than an individual stat. Sure, she makes the pass, but it’s her teammate who makes the shot. A two-person job. It’s never just been about her.
“The thing that I wanted to leave was just me being a great teammate, me being a great person to be around and just being a hard worker,” she said. “I feel like that was the main thing that I wanted to leave with here, just knowing that I gave it my all and I gave it 100% in every aspect with all the ups and downs.”