Nika Mühl to leave UConn after this season

The Nika Mühl Era at UConn will end with this season. On Friday, the senior point guard posted a goodbye to the school on X/Twitter.

Despite being a senior, Mühl had an additional year of eligibility remaining due to the Covid season. Previously, head coach Geno Auriemma has mentioned that he believes she’s ready to become a professional.

“I think Nika’s looking forward to the next step in her career, from what I gather,” he said after senior night.

While an entire postseason remaining in the current season, Mühl has already established herself as one of the best passers in program history. She holds both the Huskies’ single-game and single-season assist records after piling up 15 against NC State in Nov. 2022 and 284 total during the 2022-23 campaign. Mühl has hit the 13+ assist mark in a contest on five occasions — only four other UConn players have ever done that even once.

In terms of career records, Mühl is tied for fourth on the all-time assists list at 632 and needs just 28 more to surpass Moriah Jefferson in first place. If she stays at her current pace of 6.4 assists per game this season, Mühl will break that mark in the second round of the NCAA Tournament — assuming UConn reaches the Big East Tournament final.

Over her four years in Storrs, Mühl has played in 123 games and started 101 to this point. The Zagreb, Croatia native earned Big East Defensive Player of the Year in 2022 and 2023 while picking up all-conference second team honors in 2023 and 2024.

Even with all those impressive numbers and accolades, Mühl’s legacy at UConn is more about the intangibles she brought.

“Her biggest impact, the lasting image that people are going to have of Nika is her passionate approach to the game, her fiery leadership, her ability to inspire, her teammates, the crowd,” Auriemma said on his radio show on Friday night. “I think she became a fan-favorite really quickly because I think our fans can relate to that. That Jen Rizzotti, Jamelle Elliott, Shea Ralph kinda toughness, in-your-face kinda mentality. That’s been consistent all four years and each year she’s gotten better as an offensive player. The driving force on our team, I think that’s how she’ll be remembered, for sure.”

This past summer, UConn stopped in Zagreb during its European tour and also hosted Mühl’s younger sister, Hana, and Ball State at Gampel Pavilion this past December for a “homecoming” game.

Now, Aaliyah Edwards is the Huskies’ only senior that’s yet to announce her future plans, though she’s said on multiple occasions that she’ll wait until the end of the season to do so. Paige Bueckers and Aubrey Griffin both declared they’ll be back at UConn next year during the senior night ceremonies.

Auriemma doesn’t expect Edwards to return.

“I don’t anticipate either of them being here next year. I think Aaliyah is probably going to go in the top five or six in the draft,” the coach said on his radio show prior to Mühl’s announcement. “They both, I think, are looking forward to the future.”

Mühl’s last postseason with the Huskies begins on Saturday at noon in the Big East Tournament against Providence, who defeated Butler in the opening round.