{"id":174022,"date":"2025-09-28T00:59:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T00:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/174022\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T00:59:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T00:59:09","slug":"mikka-muurinen-keeping-ncaa-option-open-for-next-summer-as-he-embraces-partizan-jersey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/174022\/","title":{"rendered":"Mikka Muurinen keeping NCAA option open for next summer as he embraces Partizan jersey"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Eurohoops team\/ info@eurohoops.net<\/a><\/p>\n

With the NCAA paying unprecedented amounts of money to teenagers, the NBL giving them a platform to shine via the \u201cnext generation\u201d program, top European clubs not having the luxury to grow talent at the top level, with the priority being winning, and US prep schools also in the mix, the news of Mikka Muurinen signing a three-year deal<\/a> with Partizan was totally unexpected.<\/p>\n

So the young player himself explained his decision, speaking to Finnish media outlet \u201cYle<\/a>\u201c.<\/p>\n

\u201cEver since I was little, I\u2019ve dreamed of fans in Serbia, Greece, and Turkey. It\u2019s great to see them\u201d, he explains, while also admitting that he aims to play in the NCAA and the NBA.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the Eurobasket, I started looking for a place, whether it was the current, or now former, Arizona Compass high school team, or someone else. We looked through all the options and this is the most suitable one at this moment\u201d, Muurinen says.<\/p>\n

With the new NCAA rules and an NIL offer looming, the Finn openly admitted that right now he sees himself playing in the NCAA for the 2026-27 season and then getting drafted in the summer of 2027.<\/p>\n

As he said: \u201cStill with the same plan. After this upcoming season, the goal would be to go to college and then enter the draft in the summer of 2027. Just a stop in Serbia for now. It\u2019s possible that if things go well there and I like it, I\u2019ll skip college before the draft. But I don\u2019t think so, because I still have the desire to go to college\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Eurohoops team\/ info@eurohoops.net With the NCAA paying unprecedented amounts of money to teenagers, the NBL giving them…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-174022","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}