As one of the Huskers’ most experienced players, Jake Muhleisen (pronounced MULE-high-sen) is back for his third year in the lineup after starting all but one game played in his career.

Muhleisen looks to return to form after a season-ending injury in the first conference game last year. After driving to the basket at Kansas (Jan. 11), he was fouled and went down hard, suffering a fracture in the hip socket and small fracture in the pelvic area after landing almost flat on his back. The hip fracture was not displaced and did not require surgery, although it did leave Muhleisen on crutches for nearly two months and off the court until late April.

Muhleisen used the time away from the to court work hard in the weight room, as he put on 10 pounds during the off-season. He returned to pickup games in May, needing only to wear a special hip pad.

The return of Muhleisen not only gives NU a morale boost – he was the team captain as a sophomore – it also puts the squad’s most experienced point guard back in the lineup. Muhleisen has good size to match up with the larger point guards in the league, and possesses deceptive speed and outstanding floor vision. He has nearly a 2-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio for his career, and with 152 assists needs 170 to move into the NU career top 10.

Muhleisen is a valuable scorer for the Huskers and could see more action on the wing. He enters his junior campaign with an 11.7 points-per-game average for his career. Muhleisen shot 46.9 percent from the floor in his 14 games last year, which was third on the team at the time of his injury and would have led the team at the end of the season if he had kept up that same pace.

In the classroom, Muhleisen is a four-time Big 12 Commissioner’s Honor Roll member and will be a candidate for academic All-Big 12, All-District and All-America honors this year.

Courtesy: NU Sports Information