Nika Muhl played less than three minutes in her WNBA debut with the Seattle Storm , but even cheering from the bench alongside her new teammates felt like a huge victory for the former UConn point guard. Muhl is a Croatian citizen and spent the Storm’s first four games of the 2024 season unable to participate in any game activities while awaiting approval for her P1-A work visa . She was finally cleared to play her first game Thursday against the Indiana Fever in front of a record crowd of 18,343 at Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena.
“I felt like I was floating. Literally it’s like I wasn’t there,” Muhl said with a smile. “The biggest crowd in Storm history, like that’s ridiculous .
.. so to have been able to been a part of it especially in my debut game was pretty cool .
.. I was just glad that I could sit on the bench with my team and be a part of the huddles and timeouts.
Little things like that I feel like meant a lot more to me.” Muhl’s appearance was brief in the down-to-the-wire battle, which ended in an 85-83 victory for the Storm. She grabbed two rebounds in two and a half minutes and spent her first minutes as a pro the same way she ended her college career: Guarding Caitlin Clark, now the star of the Fever.
Muhl will play against another familiar face, former UConn teammate Aaliyah Edwards, in her second game when the Storm host the Washington Mystics on Saturday night. Muhl said she tried to keep a positive mindset during the frustrating wait, knowi.
