How 100 3-pointers a day at UConn prepped Nika Muhl to compete for WNBA roster spot with Storm

After she was selected with the No. 14 pick in the 2024 WNBA draft, with dozens of cameras and microphones focused on her every word, an emotional Nika Muhl was brought back to hours and hours spent last summer at the UConn women’s basketball team’s practice facility.

Muhl had a regular drill in her workouts with assistant coach Morgan Valley. She’d start at a corner of the 3-point arc and take five shots, shift a few feet and repeat until she reached the opposite corner. Then it immediately went in reverse, five shots at five positions back and forth until she reached 100.

The routine started as an activity with all the guards during summer workouts last year, but Valley said Muhl never gave up her daily sessions even after the season began. It was repetitive, frustrating, boring — and it was worth it in the instant she heard WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert call her name.

“My senior year, I spent 25 minutes before every single practice, even on the days that I didn’t feel like it, even on the days that I was tired, and shot threes and shot mid-ranges,” Muhl said on draft night. “That (improvement) is purely a testament to my hard work and dedication, and (Valley) being in that gym with me every time. I’m so grateful to her, and I’m also very proud of myself and how I just remained consistent.”

Muhl’s outside shooting percentages across her first three seasons at UConn were almost identical — 34.3% in 2020-21 and 2022-23, 34.2% in 2021-22 — but she hit 40.2% in her senior year on a career-high 127 attempts from 3-point range. Though the 5-foot-11 guard has long been known as an elite defender, Storm coach Noelle Quinn specifically pointed to that 3-point threshold as one of Muhl’s standout traits in Seattle’s pre-draft evaluations.

“Her versatility sticks out to us, her ability to stretch the floor being an above-40 percent three-point shooter,” Quinn said. ” … There’s something to say about a player who sticks with it, who shows up. Talking to her in that interview process, she is a culture fit; going to work hard every day, be a great teammate, and these are attributes that we love to see.”

The process of refining Muhl’s shot began at the advice of coach Geno Auriemma during a meeting at the end of her sophomore season. The point guard had averaged a career-low 3.8 points in 2021-22, recording less than one 3-pointer per game over 19 starts and 33 appearances. Muhl ramped up her one-on-one training with Valley last spring after her junior percentages didn’t improve, and the Huskies assistant isolated specific flaws in Muhl’s technique to correct, one small adjustment at a time.

“What I saw in her shot was she kind of bent at the waist more than she did with her lower body. She shot most of her shot with her arms rather than her whole body, so we focused from the ground up,” Valley said. “For the first three weeks (after) postseason last year she didn’t shoot outside of five feet … We started on really just form shooting through her body, up on her toes over the front of the rim, over and over and over again for four hours every week for those three weeks … and when she came back we just built on that.”

Valley’s other priority working with Muhl was developing consistency, both physically and mentally. Muhl could hit a clutch three in high-pressure scenarios, but the big moments were volatile and often preceded by cold streaks. The point guard, who ended her career as UConn’s all-time assist leader, also didn’t look for a high volume of shots herself, so she needed to maximize those limited opportunities to score.

“I’ve coached very few players that work as hard as her when she steps through the door at practice, so once she decided like, ‘I need to get better at this because Coach told me I do,’ things started to change for her,” Valley said. “There were moments in games where you could see it, like when she would hit a pull up … just because she felt confident enough to take the pull up. In the past that’s not something that’s happened for her.”

There was no major breakthrough in Muhl’s development, just slow and constant improvements over months and months. Even when the senior returned home to Zagreb, Croatia last May, she kept up with every step of Valley’s program. As much as her results during the 2023-24 season meant, Valley said the next level of validation for Muhl’s effort is in her opportunity with the Storm.

WNBA rosters are notoriously competitive to make, and Seattle has a maximum of four spots up for grabs with six protected veterans and 2023 All-Rookie selection Jordan Horston entering training camp. But after witnessing Muhl’s ability to work through adversity for four years in Storrs, Valley has no doubts about her doing the same as a professional.

“We’ve had conversations about the next level and having that opportunity, but I don’t think it really hit her until draft night, and the whole weekend really when she was down in New York,” Valley said. “Her path here has not been easy. You don’t play a lot freshman year, you’re coming off the bench sophomore year, then all your friends get hurt. Like half of her class transferred. There’s a lot of things people don’t see that she went through. She’s just a really strong person.”