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NCAA WOMEN'S REGIONALS: MADISON

December 8, 2016

Madison, Wisconsin

THE MODERATOR: We've got Coach John Dunning, senior Kelsey Ajanaku and senior Kelsey Humphreys. We'll start with comments from Coach and then take questions for the student-athletes and then questions for Coach.

Coach, if you want to open up with some of your thoughts.

COACH DUNNING: For me, it's just fun sitting up here next to these two. They've been through a lot. This year they've been through a bit, Inky for a couple years now, and I'm really happy for them that our season has kind of blossomed the way it has. We're a team that's been through a bit, like many other teams. It's not just our corner on the market, that's for sure.

And the leadership that they've had, the fight that they put into it with this amazing young group of people we have -- we have 12 freshmen and sophomores. Their role has been really key. For us to just kind of keep going through the moments that were really hard -- just when we decided we had a lineup, someone would be gone from the lineup, and we'd have to redo it, and then it would happen again. It never seemed like we could get it going, and then the last two months we've gotten it going.

I'm very excited for them. Our team is just happy to be here. Looking forward to the competition. One of the great things this time of year, for me as a coach, is getting to play teams you don't see as often. They play different style. If you're in the Tournament, you're really good, and you're really good at what you do, and that by itself, if you continue it, you could beat people who don't understand how to play you. That's a really cool part of the playoffs, I think.

So being able to be here, we fought through two teams that play very differently than we do last weekend, and we're proud to have come out of those matches and have a chance to be here. Playing the teams we're going to play, we know they're different. We know they're good. We just want to see how good we can get this year.

I think we're all really excited about where we have come from, where we are now, and where we might even get to. So thank you.

Q. For both players, as the veterans on this team, when you're surrounded by so much youth, how does it affect your roles on the team beyond just playing your positions and doing your part on the court?
KELSEY HUMPHREYS: I think all the girls bring a really unique energy to our team, and as much as it would seem like maybe high maintenance to have so many young players, it is such a great experience to play with all of them. They're all amazing athletes, and they're making all of us better.

To be honest, like I can't imagine a season without the young players or even having older seniors. There's no trouble. I don't think we like have to rein them in any way.

INKY AJANAKU: No. We have an interesting team in that we have us as seniors, and we actually don't have like a true junior class. So kind of like Merete and Ivana are redshirt juniors but do act as seniors in a leadership role. So there's a definite gap between the seniors, and it's straight down to six sophomores and -- well, five sophomores and six freshmen right now.

But I think the freshmen came in with a really high maturity level, especially volleyball-wise. They came in ready to learn and ready to be a part of the team any way they could, and to figure out a way to succeed. That's something that's very rare in a freshman. You usually have to teach them that, that they have to have a process in how they play, and a lot of the freshmen came in with that process. So it makes our jobs a lot easier.

Q. For either of you, what's it like too when you come into the season, you have a lot of youth, but then there's also a lot of players moving around positions too and trying to work in different lineups at different spots on the court?
KELSEY HUMPHREYS: Yeah.

INKY AJANAKU: I mean, like John said, we had a lot of lineup changes throughout the season, a big lineup change in the beginning of the season with Merete moving to the right side. She took that on. She was very excited about it and excited to learn. I think she's done a really great job in that position, and I think everyone would agree too.

That is just a level of selflessness and maturity that I'm really proud that our team was able to take on. Plummer had to move to the left side, and I know she had a really hard time with it in the beginning, and she was really nervous about her role, but obviously, she, like, came into it beautifully, and she worked really hard. Okay, this is what the team needs. I'm going to move here, and I'm going to try my best.

Just having players like that who all they want to do is win, not just play the role they're comfortable in, is something that really helps a team succeed.

Q. Inky, having to watch a season ago, what do you think you learned the most over the course of the year? What do you take away from that? And also, is there anything that you feel like you've been able to appreciate even more this year?
INKY AJANAKU: That's a funny question, just because a couple of nights ago I was in my bed, and we had a pretty good practice. I thought it was pretty good and pretty intense, and my legs were tired. I was like, oh, my legs are so tired. I remember a year ago, it was the end of the season, and I was just like, oh, I miss that feeling, like after you have a good practice and your legs are tired. And I just remembered that I was thinking that a year ago.

I'm just really thankful that I get to play the sport again. There's so many little things that remind you of how much fun you have, like in the gym, playing with people, like feeling a really great connection or having a really great hustle play where you're just like, I'm just so happy to be here and be a part of this.

But sitting out last year, I definitely understood how important it was to understand your teammates, in a sense. I definitely wanted to be a part of the team last year as much as I could, but there was this barrier, like I wasn't playing, I wasn't like helping them physically on the court. I just wanted to like help a lot. So I think I talked even more last year than I did this year.

But I think taking the time and understanding your teammates and recognizing how great that bond can be and how far it can take you when you actually trust each other on the court and trust each other off the court, it can really create a lot of great moments on the court.

Q. Coach, I know you said at one point this season, one of your favorite things about this group is how committed they are to getting better, just each week, each day. So is there something this week, this particular week, that you've been focused on improving on?
COACH DUNNING: I think the group would be inclined to work hard and want to get better every week, but that's a really hard job. We talk about it a lot. We set it as one of our primary goals. We have a pyramid we created for our team to add to that, that we could grab onto at each week. This week it's team, the word on the pyramid that applies to this week. We had a word for each week of the season -- is team. So thinking about that, the ways you could help your team be better this week is just -- you could scout better. You could help the person next to you relax if you know you need to. Just being a teammate, just focusing on being a team for the week.

So I think that that's maybe helped us as we've gone through, but it's also in the nature of the group for some reason. It's just a good group, maybe because of these two and the other two in Kelsey's class, sort of, Ivana and Merete. But they're committed to it, and it's hard to keep it going because you can get sick or tired or hurt or play -- you know, play matches on funny days or have tests or whatever, but they've really done a marvelous job. It's something that I'm really proud of them for and our staff, but they should be proud of themselves because it's hard to do.

I think that teams that do that give themselves a great chance to be going this way at the end of the season rather than this way, and we just hope that we're one of those teams that's still going that way.

Q. John, I know you've had a lot of great players come through your program, but for somebody like Inky, who's accomplished so much, and fans that will come here and have one or two shots to watch her play, what can you tell them about what sort of a player she is?
COACH DUNNING: That's fun (laughter).

INKY AJANAKU: Oh, this is not going to be good.

COACH DUNNING: The best part of Inky is that she's always fun. You know, you can think about a player, but I like watching sports, and I watched a lot of volleyball. I like watching other teams play. I really liked watching our team play this year, and part of it is because she really likes to have a lot of fun and she helps other people have fun. There are times when I've said, really, do you think we could be a little more serious here for a moment? And she'd go, yeah, Coach, sure, then she'd be herself.

Everybody knows she's competitive. Everybody knows how much she wants to be good. She wants to be the best player in the world, like lots of other people dream of doing, and she has the abilities to do that. She's a very explosive athlete. She has a really fast arm. She does -- one of the cool things about being -- about coaching -- for me, after coaching all these years, is seeing plays where you go, oh, my God, I can't believe I just saw that. She's a player that can make you go, whew, that was amazing. That's cool. How did you go up that fast and get that?

I think, when people watch, they're just going to see someone who loves playing volleyball, who can do it at a high level and very quickly. And I think the really neat thing about her is the last year, when she couldn't play, it forced her to learn a lot more about volleyball, and she, I think, understands strategy better, sees differently on the court now.

I could be fooling myself on that. We'd have to ask her because she might have been smiling at me the whole time going, yeah, Coach, I got it. But I think she got it.

INKY AJANAKU: Yeah, Coach, I got it.

COACH DUNNING: That's my version of Inky. She's fun to watch, and there's a lot in her that draws your eyes to her because she does some amazing things.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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NCAA WOMEN'S REGIONALS: MADISON

December 8, 2016

Inky Ajanaku

John Dunning

Kelsey Humphreys