Eden Prairie’s Niamya Holloway is model of perseverance at the U

I would say that it’s hard. I would say it’s tough. It’s one of the hardest things to go through, honestly.

Nia Holloway

Niamya Holloway had just finished a workout during a busy Friday in January on the University of Minnesota campus, not expecting to be asked an existential question about the most difficult challenge of her basketball career.

Life today holds a sharp contrast to the realities she faced 18 months ago as an incoming freshman for the Golden Gophers.

So it was perhaps an opportune time to ask Holloway what she has learned about herself after an extensive absence from the sport she loves.

“I feel like my freshman year, I was just supposed to come in and hoop and just do what I was supposed to do,” she reflected. “But it looked a lot different for me since that injury, and it was really hard on me mentally, and I think just my mental toughness and my perseverance to keep pushing through it even if I didn’t want to.”

Holloway suffered a season-ending knee injury just weeks before her freshman campaign at Minnesota. After months of rehab, as well as support from family and friends, teammates and coaches, the all-state forward from Eden Prairie High School has emerged with the strength and confidence that comes only by meeting adversity head-on.

If given the opportunity to share some sage advice with her younger, less experienced self, her message is simple: Stay the course.

“Honestly, I would tell that version of myself to just do your best to push through it,” she said. “Obviously, I wouldn’t sugarcoat things. I would say that it’s hard. I would say it’s tough. It’s one of the hardest things to go through, honestly. But just to keep pushing.”

She also would grant her former self a generous amount of grace, enough to clear the most daunting hurdle of her athletic life.

“You don’t have to be happy with what’s happening,” she said. “You don’t have to be joyous to go to rehab every day, but just go in there and give your best every single day. It’ll pay off.”

Nia, as she is known to many, was a member of then-head coach Lindsay Whalen’s highly-touted 2022 all-Minnesota freshman recruiting class, which ESPN ranked 10th nationally.

Holloway came to the Golden Gophers after a standout career in head coach Ellen Wiese’s program at Eden Prairie, averaging 16.9 points, over eight rebounds and nearly three steals per game in her senior season, with a 62 percent field goal percentage.

“She was obviously a phenomenal player for us here. Not only physically, but she was a great character leader,” Wiese said. “She did a great job for us on and off the court.”

Holloway looks back on her experience at Eden Prairie, which spanned five seasons, with great fondness.

“It was really cool,” Holloway said. “My eighth grade year, I decided not to play travel basketball. And so I tried out for the high school team, and that was Coach Wiese’s first year, so I came in with her.”

Holloway helped lead Eden Prairie to a Section 2AAAA championship and a trip to the COVID-19-abbreviated state tournament in 2020, as well as a section runner-up finish in her final year in 2022.

After her senior season with the Eagles, Holloway came to Minnesota – along with Mara Braun of Wayzata, Mallory Heyer of Chaska and Amaya Battle from Hopkins – rounding out Whalen’s power-packed recruiting class.

“We were the only freshmen coming in, so it was just a really cool bond that we created,” Holloway recalled.

Holloway played with Braun on the same AAU team and encouraged her to come to Minnesota after her own signing. Heyer had already committed to the Gophers, and the three encouraged Battle to join them, completing the most promising class of Whalen’s tenure. 

“I think there were a lot of expectations, especially just with the rank of our class coming in. And obviously, I didn’t get to play last year’s season,” Holloway said. “So it looked a little bit different for me, but you can still feel it. I know that just talking to them, they knew that attention was on them too. But honestly, our goal was just to go out and hoop.”

Amid the fanfare of talent, youth and high promise, Holloway describes coming to the U as “a blur going through all of it.”

“I think once I finally got here, I felt like, ‘OK, this is what it’s gonna be like,'” she said, looking back on a whirlwind transition from high school to college. “I think it was just such an interesting ride my senior year (at Eden Prairie) that when I got here, I just felt relieved that I was here.”

But Holloway’s opportunity to hit the raised floor running was put on hold in July of 2022 when she damaged the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee during summer workouts, ending her freshman season before it began.

“At the time, I didn’t want to believe it. I think I was just trying to stay positive, just like, ‘Oh, I’ll be fine,’” she recalled. “You don’t really want to process it, and you don’t want to believe that until you actually know. So it was really challenging.”

The long road back

“When I heard about that injury, I was just heartbroken. When you hear the words ACL …” Wiese trailed off as she reflected on Holloway’s setback. “But she’s fought back. She’s done a phenomenal job and it’ll only continue to grow in her path to recovery.”

Separated from her Gopher teammates and relegated to rehabilitation, Holloway met the challenge by turning her focus toward getting healthy.

“With any injury, obviously, it’s gonna take a toll on you mentally,” she said. “It’s just hard not being out there. It’s hard not doing the things that you wanted to do.”

Holloway credits her support system of friends and family for helping her “focus on the scope” of her injury and approaching each day with setting goals toward making incremental progress.

“Maybe sometimes looking at a really small scope, like ‘what do I need to do for this week?’” she said. “And then as I built on, I could think ahead and look ahead to what was going to come.”

As Holloway put her energies toward rehab, her teammates struggled on the court through much of the 2022-23 season. Whalen’s Gophers finished the regular season 11-19 overall and just 4-14 in the Big Ten. 

With the Big Ten Women’s Basketball Tournament held in their backyard at Target Center, the Gophers disappointingly bowed out in the first round to No. 13-seed Penn State, leading to Whalen’s departure shortly after the tournament.

Whalen, one of the most celebrated athletes in Minnesota history for her achievements with the Gophers, the Lynx in the WNBA, and the USA Olympic team, had been hired with much optimism, but no experience.

Suddenly, she was out after five seasons, leaving Holloway without an opportunity to take the floor for the coach who brought her to the university.

“It was hard. Coach Whalen was the coach that recruited me, and I had really good connections with her,” Holloway said. “We still all do.”

Enter new head coach Dawn Plitzuweit, who arrived at Minnesota after leading West Virginia to an NCAA tournament berth in her first season with the Mountaineers in 2023. Before that, she was the head coach at South Dakota, compiling an impressive 158-36 record over six seasons.

“The transition to Coach P has been amazing. Her staff is amazing. They work so hard, and they push us so much,” Holloway said. “I think it’s really, really good for us.”

Plitzuweit’s arrival coincided with Holloway’s return to the court, but not before a long and rigorous recovery period that spanned more than a year. 

Holloway said she had full confidence in assistant athletic trainer Stephen Patterson, who oversaw her training and rehab.

“Steve would tell me constantly like, ‘Your knee is strong enough, like you could trust it,’” Holloway recalls. “I trusted so much what was happening around me and what I was doing that there wasn’t a moment where I was like, ‘Oh, I’m back.’ But I just felt that I could be myself again. And I could just go out there and hoop.”

Before the 2023-24 season began, Holloway hit a milestone by participating in her first scrimmage with her teammates.

“And after that, I called my mom and my dad, and I was like, ‘I played today,’” she recalled happily. “I was just excited and mostly just happy to be back on the court. It was just that kind of rush that I haven’t had in a long time.”

Return to the floor

Holloway’s moment finally arrived on Nov. 8, 2023, when she climbed the steps up to the elevated surface at Williams Arena to compete in her first collegiate basketball game. 

The Golden Gophers opened their season by hosting Long Island University in a non-conference contest. Holloway’s Minnesota debut included 15 minutes of action, in which she scored 11 points, shooting five-of-six from the floor and posting six rebounds in a 92-57 Gopher victory.

“Honestly, it was magical,” she said. “When I first played, it had been 600-something days since my last basketball game, which was my senior year of high school, and I just think that’s absolutely nuts. And just to be able to play again has just been, honestly, a blessing.”

Holloway, now a redshirt freshman, has seen action in every game this season as she continues to work with her teammates to improve and compete in a demanding Big Ten landscape. The Gophers are 14-8 overall and 4-7 in the conference after a loss on Monday at Michigan State.

And the work doesn’t get easier as the season rolls on. The Gophers are without Braun, who injured her foot against Illinois on Jan. 28; they face No. 8 Ohio State on Feb. 9 and host second-ranked Iowa at the end of the month, with All-American Caitlin Clark leading the Hawkeyes into a sold-out Williams Arena.

“We have amazing players,” Holloway said. “I think if we can just keep pushing each other, keep pushing ourselves, it’s gonna be a really good season for us.

“But I think it’s going well,” she said upbeat. “Every day is a grind.”

And Holloway knows that daily grind from personal experience.

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Read more on the efforts to support student-athlete mental health, focusing on initiatives like Mental Health First Aid and the role of sport psychologists.