Gold and Black is a multi-platform media company that covers Purdue athletics like no one else.
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/405025
118 ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 25, ISSUE 2 f in 2011. Early returns were excellent; Jones was named the MVP of the Mortar Board Premier that fall, the first tournament she appeared in. By then, she had accumulated vast expe- rience at the highest levels of high school and club volleyball, playing on the Munci- ana AAU team that was national runner-up then national champs. "KiKi's a real cerebral player. She's smart and came in with some real good experi- ence for both Hamilton Southeastern and she played for some of the top clubs in the state," Coach Dave Shondell said. "She was further along than a lot of people coming in, but had never been a real physical player, as far as hitting the ball through the floor and having that kind of strength. She uses her quickness well, she anticipates well. And just knows how to play the game. That's the one thing that makes her pretty good as a player. And she just has steadily improved from the time she got here and now we need her to take another step." The next step is adding that physical presence. Jones has been a solid player for the Boilermakers, last season being named an AVCA All-American honorable mention after hitting at a .397 rate and averaging a team-leading 1.21 blocks per set, the sixth- best rate among Big Ten players. She was slightly under those marks through the first 20 matches of this season, but with reason: Purdue has four middle blockers to rotate this year, up from the two (Jones and Faye Adelaja) it was forced to use exclusively last year. And Jones dealt with a rib injury that left her in great discomfort, and only after weeks of summer rehabilitation could she lift her arms, jump and swing. "I lost a lot of strength because of my in- jury," she said. "I didn't lift or run, could only bike and do weighted-vest stuff for about a month. I did lose a little strength, but I'm really trying to get back as fast as possible and help my team out as best as possible." FAST START Purdue wasn't going to complain about its early Big Ten schedule. Not at all. The slate was user-friendly, to say the least, giving the Boilermakers, ranked No. 13 as of late October, a chance to get off to a quick start in the ultra-difficult league. But an advantageous schedule is only good if taken advantage of, and Purdue did so, racing to a 6-0 start in the Big Ten, before splitting a pair of matches over the Oct. 18 weekend. Then, it lost to No. 7 Penn State at home before beating 22th-ranked Ohio State the following night. "We were supposed to win those six games and we did," senior KiKi Jones said. "I'm glad we stayed true to what we were supposed to do and we put ourselves in a great situation." Through the first eight games of the Big Ten, the Boilermakers sat tied with No. 5 Wisconsin atop the league standings, a game up on the favorite Nittany Lions and 10th-ranked Illinois. Purdue's first five opponents — it played Indiana twice in a three- day span — combined to go only 13-27 through the first four Big Ten weekends. "It was a really favorable schedule for us because No. 1, we really played six matches that we were probably favored to win," Coach Dave Shondell said. "But there are a lot of teams who are favored to win matches so far in the Big Ten that haven't won them, all across the board. So that doesn't mean you're going to win them. "But also favorable because it gave us more time to incorporate the freshmen, the young players." Although the Boilermakers (17-3 overall) have nine players back from an Elite Eight team a year ago, they've spent the last couple months of this season incorporating seven freshmen. And several, like Azariah Stahl and Danielle Cuttino, are providing Purdue with depth. Those rookies, one of the top-ranked classes in the country, had their early-season growing pains — and the Boilermakers lost to unranked Western Kentucky and Saint Louis in the non-conference season — but give hope, too, that Purdue could be playing its best at the end of the year. "They've made huge strides since the first day they walked into the gym until right now," sophomore Faye Adelaja said. "There's a lot of things that were kind of up and down at the beginning of the season, and I was like 'Um, I really hope this gets fixed,' and now I'm like 'OK, we're making progress.' They have so much more that they can offer, they have so much potential, so much inside them, that they're still afraid to let out. But we can see that they can do it on the court. They're going to be really good." — Kyle Charters