SportsApril 27, 2016
Saxony's Mueller wraps up season, career as Southeast Missourian Girls Basketball Player of the Year
First, a disclaimer. If you are Brianna Mueller, avert your eyes. Because this is the story of the end of this chapter of your life -- the conclusion of four years of basketball at Saxony Lutheran, and sometimes even longer periods of friendship and teammate-ism -- and that's something you'd rather not talk about quite yet...
First, a disclaimer.
If you are Brianna Mueller, avert your eyes. Because this is the story of the end of this chapter of your life -- the conclusion of four years of basketball at Saxony Lutheran, and sometimes even longer periods of friendship and teammate-ism -- and that's something you'd rather not talk about quite yet.
"Maddie Brune, she talks about it all the time," Mueller said. "She's always like, 'Guys, we only have 60 days left until I have to leave.' And we all look at her and say, 'Maddie, stop talking about it.' ... She's just like, 'Guys we have this many days, this many days,' and we're just, 'Stop talking about it!'
"For me, I don't talk about it. One, it freaks me out. Two, I just want to enjoy every moment I have left with my best friends right now."
But all narratives crave context to form meaning, and it is that which forces us to recognize an undeniable truth -- these few months are the last that the spotlight will shine on Mueller and the current era of her Saxony girls basketball team. This is the end.
This will be the last time she will be named Southeast Missourian Girls Basketball Player of the Year.
It's an award she receives for a second straight year, and goes on a laundry list of victories, team titles, journeys and individual honors -- All-State, All-District, 2015 Girls Basketball Player of the Year and Female Athlete of the Year, among countless others.
In 2015-16, the Crusaders went 29-3; in her four-year term they went 107-13 with four district championships and two trips to the final four, including state runners-up this winter.
In her last go-around on the high school hardwood, Mueller averaged 16.3 points with 2.2 assists per game and 1.5 steals. She shot 49 percent from the field and 43 percent from outside the arc on 158 3-point attempts. Nobody in Southeast Missouri was better at the free-throw line, where Mueller was 70 of 86 for an 81-percent clip.
There. All the details are out of the way. Because even with numbers as well-rounded as Mueller boasts, they barely scratch the surface of her ability and influence on and off the court. Even if she worries those closest to her get overshadowed.
"I do feel like my teammates haven't gotten enough recognition for everything they've done," Mueller said. "Everything that I've done would not even be possible without my teammates. ... People look at how many points you score ... and that's what they see. They don't see how good of defense you played on [the opponent's] 6-foot-3 girl. That doesn't get in the stat book. I think all the limelight that I've gotten, so much should be reflected onto my teammates.
"It's super flattering and it makes me feel like what I've done is worth something and people have noticed it, the work I've put in. But I don't want it to be all about me and it shouldn't be all about me. I couldn't beat a team by myself. Nobody can. They need their whole team to do that."
But it's not entirely arbitrary that Mueller has time and time again been singled out on a squad that has been the textbook definition of a team. Her burst on the dribble drive, the intensity when she closes down on an opposing shooter, the calmness in her eyes when she takes (and makes) a shot that others would shy away from because the pressure is too unbearable -- they all reveal the untouchable, indescribable things that have come to mark Mueller's standout season and career.
"[What she has] is rare," Saxony girls basketball coach Sam Sides said. "I think most kids want to be good, but when they have that desire and aren't afraid of that moment ... A lot of kids will back off or are afraid to fail. She never showed that.
"She keeps fighting. She knows she's got confidence, but it's well-deserved confidence. That is rare."
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If she'd rather not have to have a conversation about the end, Mueller is perfectly willing to contemplate how she got there, as are those who have been along for the ride. And there is no better person to contribute to the conversation than someone who has been there from the beginning.
"We have been lifelong friends ever since we were born," fellow Saxony senior Grace Mirly said. "We've played every single sport together, before even grade school. We grew all through grade school together. I got to experience every game I've ever played with Brianna. Now that I'm thinking about it, every single basketball game has been with Brianna."
But that pesky context rears its head, and it's impossible to recognize such a deep, rich history, without recognizing we are at its conclusion.
"That's crazy. I had never even thought about that," Mueller said. "I've known her my entire life and we've just grown up on the soccer field and on the basketball court together. That's so weird to think about. We're going our separate ways now and we're not going to have that, but I know she's going to do great and I'm excited for her."
First, however, came the exposition and then the inciting incident -- all stories have them. Mirly was a part of all of it.
The pair, as well as Crusader senior Ashlynn Collier, was introduced to organized basketball at the optimist-league level, playing for the Little Jammers, coached by Mueller's father.
"I think she's been talented ever since Day 1, and she's always had a drive and a passion for whatever she's been playing," Mirly said. "She's a natural athlete. Each year, yeah, I see her getting better, and it helps motivate me and the rest of our team to get better along with her."
Mueller's father was a good high school baseball player -- one who, his daughter says, could have played in college had he wanted to. Her mother dabbled with athletic outlets, playing a little bit of softball, a little bit of basketball and participating in cheerleading for a short time. When the younger Mueller began pursuing her own sporting interests, her father became a constant presence and motivator, coaching his daughter through her introduction to soccer, softball and basketball, and pushing her to make her commitment whole.
"Anything I did, he was there every step of the way," Mueller said. "He always was asking me, 'Have you gone out in the driveway yet? Have you done this?' and I was always, 'Dad, come on.' He'd say, 'You know I say it just because I care.' I'd roll my eyes and say, 'I know, Dad.' Looking back, I'm glad he did that. Maybe if he hadn't done that I wouldn't be where I am today.
"[My parents] encourage me in everything I do and they support me in whatever decisions I make. They are my backbone."
It took a while, however, for Mueller to truly find a home in basketball. Her first love was soccer, which she had started even earlier, in kindergarten, and into which she threw her full-fledged athletic being, participating in travel tournaments on a weekly basis and focusing on a future in the sport. Mueller is still a standout for Saxony soccer, but somewhere along the line she began to burn out, too invested at too early an age, and began to find her attention being drawn to other areas. That mistress turned out to be basketball; late in junior high that relationship became a full-blown love affair.
"It happened in middle school and I haven't looked back," Mueller said. "I think a lot of what I loved about it was I was successful at it, but I wanted to work every day to be successful at it. It didn't just come naturally. I thought, 'Oh, OK, maybe I can be good at this if I put time and effort into it.' So that's what I did. I did summer ball every summer. I went into my driveway and shot all the time with my dad. It was just fun. It wasn't work. It wasn't, 'I have to go do this.' It was my release from life."
It was around that time that Sides got his first glimpse of the burgeoning standout playing in a grade-school tournament at Saxony. Mueller was suited up for St. Paul Lutheran against Trinity Lutheran.
"Most kids that age aren't really aggressive and don't attack the bucket, and that's what stuck out to me -- how well she got to the bucket and how confident she was at a young age," Sides said.
Even then, it was clear that Mueller had the ability to change games, and everyone knew it.
"In grade school, that was the one player we knew we had to stop," Raegan Wieser said. "She could shoot back then, too, so we made game plans to stop her. She's always been a great player."
Wieser has been Mueller's teammate for the last four years, helping to form a squad that benefited from the joining of forces from junior-high teams at St. Paul Lutheran, Trinity Lutheran and Emmanuel Lutheran -- the holy trinity, if you will. Wieser has gained plenty of perspective over the years, whether from facing off against Mueller, playing alongside her or watching her from the sidelines when Wieser was injured for the first half of this season; she has yet to figure out the answer to the old grade-school conundrum of stopping the 5-foot-7 guard.
"She can shoot well, but if her shot's not working, she can drive. If you stop one thing, she has another thing she'll do against you," Wieser said. "It's hard to [stop her]."
Mueller's continued evolution came under the watch of her summer basketball coach Terry Helm with TC Hoops -- "Summer is when you get better," she says -- and recent Missouri Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame inductee Sides.
Mueller thrived under their tutelage, but some things are just innate, and it is those things that elevate Mueller. Sides calls it "self-desire." It is the type of thing that causes a person to print out a photo of them crying after a state quarterfinal loss and hang that photo up so they see it every day for a year, so it seeps into their consciousness, where it can be absorbed into their very being. The type of thing that allows a person to not only do that, but effectively channel that into success, as Mueller and the Crusaders did in a vengeful, emotional comeback victory over Park Hills Central in the state quarterfinals this March.
In many ways, it was typical of what Saxony basketball and Mueller had become.
"I would say her will to win [stands out], definitely," Mirly said. "She wants to win and wants to be the best at everything, and that's a good thing. Who doesn't want to? But she's the type of person who will accomplish it. I think that's amazing and speaks well to her as a person -- she doesn't just have dreams, she has goals and she'll achieve them."
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The irony should not be lost that part of Mueller's allure is how well she usually handles the end. The story of Saxony basketball, and especially of this season, cannot be told without the countless shots she has made at the end of games in the biggest moments.
It's something that is part and parcel of the name "Mueller" on the back of the No. 15 jersey.
"She's very reliable," Wieser said. "When the game is kind of hectic or we had some games when we were down and came from behind -- we always know we can count on her. She's spent hours of time in the gym and we know that if we get her the ball, good things will happen."
The Crusaders were built on a team dynamic in which each player knew her role. Mueller, Mirly and Wieser were the greatest producers of points on the squad, and when Wieser sat out for the first half of the season recovering from an ACL tear, Mueller had to shoulder a greater burden for an offense that missed Wieser's presence. But Mueller embraced that, asking Sides what she needed to do to help fill the void.
She never wilted under that pressure, nor that of the biggest games, in which she always seemed to pop up at critical junctures.
"I would say she likes the pressure and she takes it on," Mirly said. "She likes to know her teammates are counting on her. I think she thrives under pressure. I think she wouldn't have those chances, though, without her teammates. I think that says a lot about her teammates because [everyone] knows their strengths and weaknesses. They know Brianna can score, so we get her the ball."
That serenity may have always been within her, but Mueller admits it was something she needed to learn to tap into. There were times earlier in her career where she doubted her purpose when she was struggling with her shot and, as is the case with many young athletes, had to figure out how to not beat herself.
"I'm supposed to shoot and I'm supposed to make my shot. Shooters get in slumps -- you're not always going to make your shots -- and I think that was my biggest struggle," Mueller said. "When I'd go four, five or six games and be making nothing. 'OK, why am I even playing basketball? I'm supposed to be a shooter and I'm not doing anything for the team.' That's when you have to go outside and say, 'I'm a shooting guard for a reason,' and practice and practice and practice and think to yourself, 'This next shot is going in.'"
There's no longer a question of purpose.
On December 23, Mueller drained a 3-pointer with less than 5 minutes left to play in the Kelso Supply Holiday Classic championship game against Jackson, drawing a foul and converting the four-point play. The Crusaders had lagged behind much of the game and were tied at the time the shot fell. Saxony never trailed again on the way to its first trophy of the season.
Two and a half months later, she was helping launch her side into the state championship, despite being held scoreless through the first three quarters of a semifinal against Southern Boone. She knocked down a 3 off a ball screen 24 seconds into the final period to give the Crusaders a lead they never relinquished.
And none were bigger than the ones she hit a week earlier in the state quarterfinal to vanquish Park Hills Central.
On a night when the whole team struggled to solve the opposing defense, Mueller knocked down a trey to pull Saxony within one with 2:42 remaining, and less than 20 seconds later, she put the Crusaders ahead on a layup off a turnover. It was the first time Saxony took a lead in the fourth quarter, and the last time it needed to.
She couldn't hit all of her team's baskets, but she always seemed to get the biggest ones.
"I think there were a couple times she took big shots -- she wanted to take the big shot and relished that," Sides said. "She hit a big shot in the [state] quarterfinal this year and in the semifinal game when we were struggling to score. She wants the ball. She's got confidence and wants the ball, and more times than not, she came though."
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The end is also a beginning. Although she's busy trying to help the Saxony soccer team to a state title defense, she won't again pull on her high school basketball jersey. She will, however, wear the colors of Lindenwood University-Belleville, to which she recently committed her future.
She calls the recruiting process a "stressful operation," but believes she's found the right place for her. She had multiple offers from multiple schools, but believes Lindenwood checks the right boxes, and after getting the offer in August and putting it off through the basketball season, saw no reason to extend the waiting game (with a little motherly pressure to make a decision).
"When I visited Lindenwood University and met the coach and met the girls and saw the campus, I had 'that' feeling," Mueller said. "I had the feeling that this is my home, this is where I should be the next four years, this is where I belong. Whenever you have that feeling, I think you just have to go with it.
"I cannot wait. I'm sad to leave high school and sad to part ways with my friends and everything I've known for the past four years, but I'm super excited for the next four years. I'm a little nervous, but I'm only two hours away from home, so it's kind of comforting to know if I do get homesick I can come home on the weekends. This is huge -- I don't want to go too far away because the people that have gotten me where I am in my sports career today, I didn't want to go eight hours away and they can never come and watch me play. My whole family and my support system and Coach Sides can come watch me play. That was huge to me. I didn't just want to leave and everything they've made me into, they wouldn't be able to see me. ... That was cool, that I could be in a place that was accessible for people to come watch me play."
This is how Mueller frames "the end" to make it more palatable -- by embracing the future and recognizing the brilliance of the past.
"I think it's really rare, what I've had these past four years in high school," Mueller said. "I've gotten to play with my best friends not only on the basketball court but in life. I feel like that's so rare. We all had the same goal and were all driven and passionate, each one of us.
"Having such an amazing man as our coach to be with us each step along the way and encourage us and be a father figure to us, I couldn't ask for anything more. I feel like I've had something that a lot of people don't have the opportunity to have. I was coached by a hall of famer. He was a hall of famer. How many people get to say that? I mean, not that many. And the people I've gotten to play with. These four years, I will never forget."
So much has happened in the last four years at Saxony, let alone her 10-year basketball career, that Mueller would have to be forgiven if she's overwhelmed by the memorable moments. But after thinking about it for a bit, she comes up with something that stands out. Not surprisingly, it's threaded directly to her inner drive.
"It's the feeling of working your butt off to accomplish something, and [succeeding]," Mueller said. "Sophomore year, the quarterfinal game, when we won that and we're making school history and going to state. I had worked my butt off with my teammates. Every single practice we'd push each other like no other. Especially this last year, when we beat Park Hills, especially considering they beat us [the year before]. That was such a drive for us. There was so much fire and so much passion. I'll never forget the feeling that overcame my body when I realized we were going back to state. I felt like all the work and tears and sweat, it was for something. I wasn't just doing it to do it, it was for something. That's, like, the best feeling."
Much like the despair that was captured a year earlier, there's a photo that goes with it. The blurry shape of Brune stands crouched in a shooting stance at the charity stripe in the foreground, Mueller linked arm in arm with her fellow seniors -- her friends and teammates and partners in her journey through life -- in the background, joy and relief and exhaustion in crystal-clear focus on their faces.
"I look up and there's a few seconds left," Mueller said. "It was deja vu, because sophomore year Maddie was shooting free throws when we realized we were going to state. I was like, 'This is a message from God or something.'
"I knew the feeling of what Park Hills felt from [2015]. There was a few seconds left and people were shooting free throws and I looked up and we were down by six and you know you're not going to win. This year we were on the opposite side of that, and it was the best feeling ever."
Everyone who was along for the ride highlights different Mueller particulars that they will carry with them, but all are made from the same mold.
"I first think of the quarterfinals against Park Hills," Wieser said. "I think we were down and she made a huge 3. I just remember, after that, the momentum was on our side. I think of that as one of her biggest shots in our basketball careers."
Pick a moment in which hard work, desire and passion rises to the top, and there is Mueller.
"In the [Kelso Supply Holiday Classic] Christmas tournament against Jackson I think we were down by 10 and we got the ball to her," Sides said. "She wanted that and she thrives on that. She hit a couple of shots, they guarded her tight and fouled her and made that [3-pointer] and finished that play. I remember her expression when she did that ... She had that enthusiasm and fire in her that's special."
After Saxony lost to Strafford in the Class 3 final, one of the sophomores on the team stood up amongst the heartbroken, crying throng and described the level of inspiration the senior class had instilled in them. Mueller described it as "one of the greatest things anyone could have said to us." In that way, she knows that she has helped to leave behind a strong legacy at the still-young program.
And there is little doubt that even on a great team, Mueller's stamp will be remembered.
"I don't have a specific moment, but a specific reaction," Mirly said. "It's after some big play happens, whether she did it or not, she'll jump up and she, like, grabs her fists -- we call it her volleyball cheer, where she pumps her fists and her face just lights up -- and that's just the image I picture of Brianna at the epitome of everything. Her heart is just in everything she does."
That's what four years of work and love and searing drive comes to at the end. That is the context.
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