From Zagreb to Storrs: A Look At Nika

Nika Mühl remained lying on the floor, her face covered with her palms and sobbing in pain. The UConn Huskies playmaker was in a duel with a rival from High Point when she stopped awkwardly and twisted her ankle. The camera followed her help, then escorted her out of the field on crutches, to continue sitting outside him, her eyes still covered.

UConn has been at the top of women’s college basketball for years and, with 11 NCAA Division I National Championship titles won, the most successful team in history. The Huskies girls are very popular in the US; they are regularly followed by the biggest media, their matches are broadcast by ESPN, and the word about them has reached us, we wrote about them a few years ago when they were led by the legendary coach Gen Auiremm, who has been on the bench since 1985 (!) - connected an incredible 110 wins in a row.

One girl from Zagreb's Trešnjevka also plays in such a team.

Mühl arrived at the University of Connecticut last year and, after overcoming her initial adjustment problems, became an important team player already in her freshman season. On the other hand, in her native Croatia, few have even heard of her and her journey whose seemingly inevitable destination should be the professional WNBA league. In this way, Nika would follow in the footsteps of Koraljka Hlede, the first Croatian to play in the WNBA after being selected as the fourth pick in the draft in 1998 by Detroit Shock. Korie now runs a basketball academy in Chicago, and it started, interestingly, in the same place as Nika about a quarter of a century later: in the Matchbox.

She was so stunned that at first she thought that mail they had sent her was some kind of joke. Of course she wasn't

ŽKK Trešnjevka 2009 is the successor club of the once famous Montmontaža, which for a long time was the bearer of the women's basketball tradition in Zagreb, but was shut down in 2007 under bizarre and never completely clarified circumstances. Namely, Nikola Lisicar, the owner of the company after which the club bore its sponsorship name, died after being wounded in front of his own doorstep, and the club went with him. To be ‘born again’ under a new name. Nika's previous life story and roots are now showing interest in many large media houses. The help of a colleague from one of them brought me to the beginning of her story.



"It's a great, great recognition for us," says Dean Nemec, one of the coaches at the club who is most responsible for Nika's early playing development. "We are terribly proud that Nika is so successful in her first season there, because it's a really big thing for her, but also for us."

With 14 among seniors

Just six years ago, Nika was quite an ordinary 13-year-old - albeit with an interest in a sport that even then did not involve basketball at all. The fact that she trained handball, swimming and volleyball at the time - and not basketball - was perhaps small and bizarre precisely because she comes from a real basketball family. Her father Darko was a player in a number of Zagreb clubs, until a serious injury abruptly interrupted his career. The same thing happened to mother Roberta, also a former basketball player; and her dreams of playing were interrupted by a severe injury on the floor. That left them "broken-hearted," Nika once said, so they certainly didn't want that feeling for their daughter. Consciously or unconsciously, they distracted her from what, it now seems, was her destiny. And the fate of her sister Hana, also a very talented basketball player.

It is to be expected that they took a similar position as their Nika at the Mühl home last night, watching her curl up on the floor. To make matters worse, she already had ankle problems earlier this season. The first predictions, however, say that this is not a serious injury and that the young basketball player will soon return to the floor, and the Huskies swept High Point with a score of 102-59 at the opening of the NCAA Tournament, although coach Auiremma, who is positive on COVID-19, but his return to work is expected in the middle of the week. As for Nike, we are still waiting for reliable news.

If at 13 she wasn't even in basketball yet, at 14 she was already making her debut in the senior competition.

As soon as she stepped on the floor in the halls where her parents also played, first in the ranks of ŽKK Croatia 2006, it was clear how naturally Nika was destined for the sport. In Trešnjevka, she and her colleagues were welcomed by Nemec, a coach known for his work with young players in clubs, but also in young national teams. He played with Nika's dad himself, but he knew that now her story was only hers, and that she should be treated that way. Especially since in her case, the German and his colleague Šime Vidakovic really had something to work with.

"It was clear from Nike from the beginning that she was physically ready to play with the seniors," explains Nemec. "But that was not what pushed her in the beginning. She actually makes a living from goal setting; let her repeat certain exercises in training and she will roll her eyes. But when she realized that she had to be the best in those little things as well, then she would immediately start at the strongest pace. That's what really betrayed her