Overview:
Miro Little, starting point guard for the Finland basketball team which reached the 2025 EuroBasket semifinals, has become a vital cog for the team at UCSB this season
Miro Little felt like he had a lump of coal in his stocking last Christmas.
Every step came with a stab of pain as a foot injury kept UC Santa Barbara’s newest star point guard sidelined for a month of basketball games.
And still nothing could alter Little’s belief that he’d reached the sunny side of the street after a very circuitous, four-year odyssey from Finland to the United States’ Pacific Coast.
“I wake up to the sun, under the palm trees,” he told Noozhawk after returning to the court last week. “It’s cold and dark in Finland right now — raining and snowing and all that in between.
“It’s warm here, like 18 degrees Celsius (64.4 Fahrenheit) or whatever, and I’m just grateful.
“You can’t be mad waking up here.”
Little, a 6-foot-4 junior transfer from the University of Utah, feels the warmth from more than just the Southern California weather.
UCSB is his fourth stop since he first migrated to America’s heartland —to Sunrise Christian Academy in Bel Aire, Kansas — to hone his game against the top high school players in the United States.
It finally feels like he’s found his American home.
“It’s a great place, but even the people are better here,” Little said. “I think that’s the best thing I can tell you about Santa Barbara and the university.
“I love the school that I’m going to now … Each person, from the head athletic director to each one of our managers, to my teammates and the other students and everybody.”
“I just know that every brother I have and every coach, we all believe in each other, and we don’t need anybody else. We’re just ready to get back rolling.”
miro little
That’s why his outlook remained bright last week even though his return — a 20-point, four-assist performance against UC Davis — failed to prevent UCSB’s third-straight loss.
“If one team in the conference can get through this it’s us,” Little declared after the defeat. “I will tell you that right now, just knowing how tight everybody is in that locker room and having a coaching staff like this.
“I just know that every brother I have and every coach, we all believe in each other, and we don’t need anybody else. We’re just ready to get back rolling.”
The Gauchos (11-7, 4-3 in the Big West Conference) have since scored convincing wins over Cal State Bakersfield and first-place Hawai‘i to move into a four-way tie for third place in the league standings.
Little Big Man
Little is averaging 12.3 points on 48.7% shooting — 37.8% from three-point range — and 4.6 rebounds per game this season. He also leads the Gauchos with his averages of 3.9 assists and 1.8 steals.
His passing and shooting skills, powerful 195-pound frame and high basketball IQ have served coach Joe Pasternack well at the point-guard position.
“He’s the head of our snake,” Pasternack said.
Little missed six games after the foot ailment forced him off the court during the opening minutes of UCSB’s Big West Conference opener against Long Beach State on Dec. 4.
“We’d just beaten Seattle to win the (Resorts World Las Vegas Classic) championship,” Pasternack said. “He was the heart of our team and losing him was devastating.
“He’s been through so much with his plantar fasciitis situation, but it’s just great to have him back.”
The injury, located in the thick band of tissue that supports the arch of his foot, hurt his heart as much as his heel. It agonized him to watch UCSB lose four of five games during the Christmas break.
“There was a lot of talking on the phone with family and friends, just trying to keep my spirits up when I was down,” he said. “A lot of people know that basketball is everything to me and they knew it was going to be a hard month for me, mentally.
“I just appreciate my circle — every single one of them — for helping me through this thing.”
Little’s mother and one of his five sisters made the long journey from Finland to keep him company through the holidays.
“That was super-nice,” he said. “I even got to have some Finnish food.”
Mom’s cooking came with a Christmas theme … of sorts.
“Have you ever had reindeer?” Little asked.
His mother, Kati Packalén, is just happy that her son’s heart is full again after disappointing experiences at both Baylor and Utah.
“There haven’t been any easy seasons on the North American side,” she said after his departure from Utah last spring.
He had transferred to Utah after playing barely seven minutes per game as a freshman at Baylor.
Little got more playing time with the Utes, which included 12 starts. He scored a career-high 21 points at BYU in their regular-season finale on March 8.
But his departure from Utah was already set in motion after the firing of head coach Craig Smith two weeks earlier. He saw no future with new coach Alex Jensen.
“They really didn’t want to keep me over there, and that made it a no-brainer for me to come over here,” Little said.
Kids Play
Little was only 4 or 5 when he announced at the family breakfast table that he would play in the NBA some day.
“Since then, it’s been really amazing to see how he’s made his own path,” his mother said. “He’s been very determined.”
He was only in third grade when he talked her into letting him switch to an elementary school that offered sports. Traveling to the new, faraway school meant taking multiple buses every day.
“I’ve seen his passion, determination and what he’s wanted from basketball since he was little,” Packalén said.
“He’s been so determined to make basketball his life and his career.”
He inherited a love of basketball from both parents.
“I think it’s 50-50, exactly,” Little said. “They’ve both shown so much to me.”
His mother was 18 when she came to America from Finland to work as an au pair and play basketball at Mercy University, an NCAA Division II school in Dobbs Ferry, New York.
She met Miro’s father, La Trice Little, while they were both playing for Mercy.
They moved to Finland after their college days. La Trice played and later refereed professional basketball in the country.
“I was always in the gym with my dad,” Little said. “I lost every game of one-on-one to him until I was like 15 or 16.
“But since that one day I beat him, I’ve never lost to him again. He’s been ducking me ever since.”
His mother, who was known as Kati Palokangas while playing for Mercy from 1998 to 2001, was the Lady Flyers’ team captain during her senior season.
She started coaching soon after her return to Finland and then began an administrative career with the Finnish Basketball Association.
“She worked her way up from being just this phone-call person to now being the head of the entire basketball federation,” Little said.
“They’re both amazing parents and they motivate me every single day,” he continued. “They’ve done so much for me that I don’t even understand it some days.
“At one point I’m going to be in a situation to give back everything I can.”
He began planning that as a child by drawing a picture of the three-story house that he intends to buy for his mother.
“Basketball court downstairs,” he said. “Bedrooms up and down, and on the middle floor kitchen and movie theater.
“I hope I can do it one day.”
The Finn Crowd
Little began building his basketball career at an early age.
He played for his hometown club, Tampereen Pyrinto, before moving to the Finnish capital to continue his development with the Helsinki Basketball Academy in 2021.
He started to attract the attention of college coaches in America after averaging 17.8 points, 7.3 rebounds and 4.8 assists at the 2021 Nordic U18 Championships.
Finland added Little to its senior team roster for the 2022 European Championship. He was, at age 17, the team’s youngest player in 25 years.
“It felt crazy playing,” he said. “I was remembering a few years ago, in 2017, when I was a ball boy bringing the ball out to games at the EuroBasket in Finland.”
It got crazier for all of Finland last September during the team’s Cinderella run to the semifinals of the FIBA EuroBasket Championships. Little averaged 4.6 assists per game as the Finns’ lead guard.
“This was my fourth summer playing for the national team, and every time it’s so much fun,” he said.
He scored 13 points with six assists in a Round of 16 upset over world superpower Serbia.
His eight rebounds were more than the total of even Nikola Jokić, the 6-foot-11 and 284-pound Serb who has won three NBA Most Valuable Player awards.
“There’s nothing better than being part of history,” Little said. “But it’s not just about us players … It’s about everyone involved in this program.”
And that included the managing director of Finland Basketball.
Mom tried to watch the game against Serbia through “a certain kind of bubble” as her country’s top basketball administrator.
“But at the end, the bubble cracked quite badly,” she told reporters afterward.
Packalén broke down in tears when her procession of post-game congratulations finally reached her son.
“I hugged him for a long time,” she said.
Long and Windy Road
Pasternack had another Finnish player in that game: NBA All-Star Lauri Markkanen of the Utah Jazz.
“I recruited Lauri to Arizona, and he and Miro are very close,” he said. “Their playing together on Finland’s national team was a big part of his coming here.
“We know all their people in Finland and we know his mother … She’s a really, really impressive person.”
Pasternack had tried to recruit Little ever since he first entered the NCAA transfer portal in 2023.
“He was a top-50 player in the country,” he said, referring to the No. 48 rating he received while at Sunrise Academy from On3 in its composite of rankings from all four of the major recruiting media companies.
“He went to Baylor and didn’t play,” he added. “He went to Utah and played a little bit … Started, and then got out of the lineup.”
All that matters to Pasternack now is that he’s back in UCSB’s lineup. Little is his third point-guard recruit from a European countryin as many years, following in the footsteps of Belgium’s Ajay Mitchell and Stephan Swenson.
Mitchell is now starring for the defending NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder while Swenson is playing professionally in Lisbon, Portugal.
“Unbelievable character guys, all three,” Pasternack said. “Miro is an unbelievable kid who comes from an unbelievable family.”
Little passed on that compliment to every one of his new teammates.
When asked how difficult it was to switch gears from his EuroBasket euphoria when he pulled into Santa Barbara last October, he replied, “Super-easy!”
“Every guy in the locker room is awesome,” he said. “I love each one of them … They’re great people on the court and better people off the court.”
He considered the question further before breaking out in a big grin.
“It’s just so easy to go out there and have fun,” Little explained. “We all have something we love and we come in here and do it every day with a smile on our face, and I think that’s the easiest group to be around.”
When Kati Packalén’s son first burst onto Finland’s basketball scene, a curious reporter asked her, “What kind of guy is Miro?”
“Of course, this is a bit of a biased answer,” she began, “but he is very kind, passionate and empathetic.
“For those close to us, he’s still that little Miro.”
The kid architect with big plans for a home in basketball.
