The historic basketball tournament was a fantastic prelude to the WNBA draft, where Iowa’s superstar Caitlin Clark was expectedly selected first, and Croatian Nika Mühl became the 14th pick at the rookie ceremony.

Iowa’s last three games in the NCAA tournament continuously broke viewership records for women’s basketball in America, with the final being watched by a peak of 24 million people, making it the most-watched basketball game and sports event in America in the last five years, excluding only football and the Olympics, Index reported.

Clark Heads to Indiana

This achievement is largely credited to 22-year-old Caitlin Clark, who in four years at Iowa scored 3951 points, more than anyone in the history of college basketball, both women’s and men’s. She ended her college career with a record average of 28.4 points and with the most points, assists, and three-pointers in NCAA tournament history.

Iowa’s point guard was selected first in last night’s WNBA draft by the Indiana Fever, a team that won their only championship in 2012 but hasn’t made the playoffs since 2016, hoping their new superstar will break that streak.

Los Angeles Sparks chose Cameron Brink from Stanford as the second pick, while the Chicago Sky made a great move by selecting Brazilian Camila Cardoso as the third pick. Cardoso led South Carolina to the title as the team’s top player, and Angel Reese, who led Louisiana State to the title the year before, was also selected, also through Clark and Iowa.

For Croatia, this draft is significant as Nika Mühl, a 23-year-old from Zagreb who went from Trešnjevka to America in 2020, was chosen as the second in the second round, 14th overall.

In four years, she established herself as one of the best playmakers and defenders in college basketball, breaking all assist records at the University of Connecticut, where she reached the Final Four each time but only made it to the final once in 2022.

She was chosen by the Seattle Storm franchise, which has won the WNBA a record four times, most recently in 2020. After the retirement of legendary point guard Sue Bird in 2022, they missed the playoffs for the first time since 2015 until they found her successor in the 178-centimetre-tall Croatian, who broke her records at UConn.

Another Croatian basketball player, national team member Ivana Dojkić, played for the Storm last year, but after scoring 6.5 points in 23 games, they did not renew her contract.