Former Maryland women’s basketball star Diamond Miller, who recently began her first WNBA season with the Minnesota Lynx, says she learned how to bounce back from failure during her time with the Terps and she expects to draw from those experiences as a professional.
Miller was taken by the Lynx with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2023 WNBA Draft after averaging 14.6 points, 4.9 rebounds and 2.6 assists in 117 games across four years at Maryland. The 6-foot-3 forward played 23 minutes against the Chicago Sky in her regular-season debut on May 19, posting nine points and seven rebounds.
Miller is one of two rookies on the team along with former UConn center Dorka Juhász. Miller understands she has a lot to learn, but she wants to be consistent with her approach.
“One thing I can bring to the table is I’m going to bring that energy,” Miller said on Glenn Clark Radio May 19. “I’m constantly trying to help my team in any which way, so I think that brings a lot to the table, and my versatility of being able to score on all three levels is extremely helpful, especially going professional. Being a sponge, I think that’s the main thing I can take away is honestly learning. I know I’m not perfect. I know I’m going to make mistakes. I know I still have a lot to learn.”
Miller’s experiences at Maryland should help her handle the ups and downs. She averaged 19.1 minutes per game as a freshman in 2019-20 before the Terps’ promising season was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Her minutes and production exploded in 2020-21, when she averaged 17.3 points, 5.8 rebounds and 2.9 assists and landed first-team All-Big Ten honors.
Miller’s improvement was no accident. Following her freshman year, Miller made a concerted effort to put in the work necessary to eventually make a run at the WNBA.
“I just told myself, ‘I’m really going to try to go pro. I’m going to give my all and whatever happens, I’m going to be satisfied with it, but I’ve got to know I’m going to put my all into it,'” Miller said. “That summer, I really worked extremely hard. I was able to have a successful sophomore year and that kind of gave me the confidence like, ‘Hey, I think I can do this.’ So it’s just realizing that hard work really does pay off.”
However, knee trouble limited Miller to 22 games in 2021-22, and her production dipped across the board: 13.1 points, 3.1 rebounds and 2.8 assists. Not only that, the campaign turned into a slog for the entire team, which saw an exodus of big-name transfers following the conclusion of the season.
But Miller stayed and bounced back to have the best season of her career as a senior in 2022-23, when she returned to first-team All-Big Ten form by averaging 19.7 points, 4.9 rebounds and 2.9 assists per game. She led the Terps to the Elite Eight, their deepest tournament run since 2015.
Shortly after the season ended, Miller announced she was going pro. She was projected to go No. 2 overall behind former South Carolina center Aliyah Boston, and that’s exactly how it played out. Miller will take plenty of lessons from Maryland.
“Throughout my four years of college I learned a lot about myself and what I’m capable of,” Miller said. “One thing I could say, I learned that you have to fail. I hate failing and I hate falling, but if I didn’t get hurt or I didn’t have those bad games where I just cried all night, it wouldn’t have gotten me better as a [player] or an individual, so learn to be OK with being uncomfortable and failing. That is something that I learned.”
And now, Miller can apply those lessons in Minnesota throughout the 2023 season.
“You have to be able to withstand those waves — the good, the bad and the ugly — and still be kind of constant, which is easier said than done, obviously, but that is something that I have learned,” Miller said.
For more from Miller, listen to the full interview here:
Photo Credit: Getty/NBAE