Raised by Pyrinnön in Tampere Miro Little left after Susijeng’s EC competitions for the United States and Sunrise Christian Academy. There, after the initial difficulties, the Finnish promise has claimed his place in the elite of his team on the way to the university basket and the NCAA.
Little tells In the Basketball Association’s bulletin (you will switch to another service)that he purposely wanted to draw attention with his defensive playing: In the United States, many players do not value defending, or at least do not want to do it with great dedication.
– After a difficult early season, I grinded myself back and now both my own performance and that of the team have become more confident. I have mainly played in the first position and the throw has fallen quite nicely. It feels like I’ve been able to do everything the coaches have asked me to do on the field, Miro is happy.
Has half a year on the high school basketball courts been worth the expectations for Susijeng’s young promise?
– Absolutely. I feel that I have learned an incredible amount about basketball during this season and I believe that these games will prepare me for the next level. Now we train hard every day and enjoy this journey.
Outside the field, Little’s everyday life is the same as during the years spent with HBA-Märsky. School days start at eight and end at half past three.
After that, the physical training starts and the days culminate in the basketball gym. In the evenings, we play poker or hang out on the phone.
From the close-knit team, Miro spends his time especially with the 208-centimeter Lithuanian-born Chicagoan Matas Buzelis with, who is already incensed as one of the top bookings of the NBA in 2024.
– Matas is a funny guy. A kind of guy and an incredibly good player. I’ve learned a lot from the coaches here, like many little things that help me become better on the field, feels the 193-centimeter back.
Team and defense game in tikunnoka
Basketball circles have been surprised that Little didn’t want to take playing with men as a step in his development. According to some views, playing with high school boys does not advance Miro’s career sufficiently. The fact is that he is facing young men of high school age, and not experienced players.
He was the first Finn to play in the NBA and coached Little for three years at the Helsinki Basketball Academy Hanno Möttölä says that there is not necessarily a perfect place for development.
– Miro felt that he would get a good starting point for college basketball by going to the USA and getting used to the basketball culture there before going to Baylor. I believe that Miro will get exactly what he set out to get this year, says Möttölä.
– I know that Miro will be able to distinguish himself in the United States with his team and defensive play, precisely in those areas that all the universities that recruited him paid attention to.
The universities that were after Little did not appreciate the one-on-one decoration skills of the Finnish forward, when there are plenty of those players in the home country.
– Miro’s understanding of the game and the fact that he had played for several years in a tactically completely different environment than his peers in the USA were appreciated there, Möttölä instructs.
Individual-oriented basketball
Möttölä, who has been the assistant coach of the Finnish men’s national basketball team since the summer of 2019, states that in Sunrise Christian’s games, Miro has been able to get used to a more individual-oriented basketball than, for example, in Finland. Of course, it was already clear when we went behind the rapako.
– Pure athleticism is also certainly high in top-level high school games in the USA compared to Europe. These are the biggest differences between European and American top junior basketball. The technical and tactical aspects of the game – especially at the team level – basically turn to the advantage of European basketball, emphasizes Möttölä.
The level of high school basketball in the United States is very varied. When only less than 15 states have an attack shot clock even in use, and even that varies between 30 and 40 seconds depending on the state, we are talking about a partially frozen sport culture in the mother country of the sport. However, for teams like Sunrise Christian, this is not high school basketball in its original form.
– They don’t play against other high schools in their own city, but travel around the country playing against other “prep-schools” of a tough level.
– These “prep-schools” recruit top-level talents like Miro from all over the US and the world for 1-2 years to give presentations for universities and the NBA. It’s clear that when the team has several top players in their age group, such as Miro and Mataz Buzelis at Sunrise, it’s a game of high-quality junior basketball at the individual level alone, Möttölä states.
After this season, Miro Litte will move to the Baylor Bears, the champion of the NCAA league in the second year. He is the NBA of the year 2024 on the Mock Draft list (you will switch to another service) currently ranked 40th.
– I spoke with several NBA scouts last season about Miro, and several of them considered him to be a potential reservation for the summer of 2023, reveals Möttölä.
– I personally have a strong belief that the next season at Baylor will be an excellent environment for Miro to develop. The head coach Scott Drew under the leadership, Baylor has produced some very NBA-ready players in recent years. I strongly believe that in the summer of 2024, Miro will be the third Finn and the second HBA boy player to be booked in the 1st round of the NBA, emphasizes Möttölä.