BIG TEN VOLLEYBALL MEDIA DAYS

August 3, 2026

Keegan Cook

McKenna Wucherer

Stella Swanson

Minnesota Gophers

Press Conference

KEEGAN COOK: Always start with gratitude and thanks to the Big Ten for bringing us back and letting us share this time with the athletes and the other coaches.

Really happy to have these two young women next to me healthy and ready to compete. We're four days into our fall practice and I like what I see. It's probably the most we've been able to do in the first four days of a training camp mostly because of the shape they're in and the relationships that we've formed over these past three seasons.

We're trying to make that jump from good to great and play in three more matches in the season and bring home the program's first national title. Excited to share this group with you guys here in the coming months.

Q. (Off microphone)

KEEGAN COOK: By design, it starts off with two exhibitions actually right off the bat, University of Texas Austin next week, followed by Iowa State on the road, and then jumping into five pretty intense matches to start the season -- ASU, Creighton, Florida, Auburn and Miami, Florida as our home opener.

It was time. The team was ready to get back to a place where our schedule looks like that. Last year's schedule was about playing winning programs across all conferences.

But I thought this group was going to be the group that brought us back to a place where we're playing top-10 teams and putting ourselves in a position to get a top eight or a top four seed in the tournament and make sure that we're playing in front of the Gopher fans as much as possible.

So I think it says that I was ready, I believe in this group to take on that challenge.

Q. Keegan, I want to ask about the other end of your schedule, the introduction to the Big Ten Tournament for the first time. But you're not done. You said (indiscernible) after that. Why would you want to add that you're the only school that added a game after the tournament?

KEEGAN COOK: Yeah, we like to do things a little differently in Minneapolis. I think the idea is depending on where you finish if that Big Ten Tournament it's a long time before you play another match. So making sure that the team stays in rhythm was the main point of that.

Having a senior night that's not a Big Ten match is something I wanted to explore making sure that we celebrated our seniors in front of their home crowd appropriately. So that was probably two of the main reasons behind finding a match there to round out our nonconference schedule.

Q. Mckenna, how do you feel?

MCKENNA WUCHERER: I feel great. I mean, I have the best teammates in the world. I have the best doctors, training support staff and staff that's trusted in me and believed in me to still be here today. And I'm happy to be healthy.

Q. 100 percent?

MCKENNA WUCHERER: 100 percent.

Q. Can you apply for a seventh year?

MCKENNA WUCHERER: No, this is the last one. And we're going to make it the best one yet.

Q. What's your level of anticipation and officially getting on the court with Mckenna? I know that you've worked together a lot outside of the uniform, but how excited are you for that and joining up with her?

STELLA SWENSON: Yeah, I'm absolutely thrilled. We've been in college together for three years now and we have yet to step on the court together officially. So it's been a long time coming.

And, again, I cannot state how excited I am to play with her. She's an incredible player. She's extremely well rounded. And not only is she an amazing player, she's an amazing friend and teammate.

Q. (Off microphone)

MCKENNA WUCHERER: Definitely a difficult two years for me. In '24, I played the majority of that hurt and it was hard to show up every single day. I didn't really know what I could do in practice. I was kind of just surviving and fighting through because I wanted to do anything to help my team win.

And Keegan and I had a lot of conversations. If it just meant playing through rotations that meant playing through rotations. I was gonna do anything that year to help us win.

And then '25, I just decided it was best to get to full health. I ultimately wasn't at the beginning of the year. So I just wanted to have the best season in maroon and gold and it wasn't going to happen last year.

So just the best doctors, training support staff -- Keegan, obviously in this world of college sports, if someone is injured you're constantly looking to the next player, but Keegan's been by my side through it all. So super blessed to have this support system. And that's part of the reason why I chose Minnesota. It's always the people. And that's why I keep returning.

Q. (Off microphone)

KEEGAN COOK: Open minded. Just the intensity, when you play somebody once and you know you have to wait a year to play them again it's an easy match to coach. The athletes know what it means. You know what it means. The athletes and the coaches are gonna respond to that.

Then as far as the tournament's concerned, you put these coaches and these players in a building with whatever sized trophy, I think you're gonna like what they do. We saw that from other conferences, but I think the Big Ten version of it's gonna be something special.

Q. (Off microphone)

STELLA SWENSON: Yeah, I'm really excited to be here. I wasn't able to be here because of national team conflicts. I was actually really sad about not being able to come because I think this is a really cool opportunity for girls to meet each other and just branch out and talk to people.

But I think volleyball's grown so much. And I love that. I've been in the gym since I could even hold a ball. I've been in the gym for forever. So getting to see opportunities like this arise, it's been awesome.

MCKENNA WUCHERER: This is my second media day. I came in 2024. And I was ecstatic when Keegan asked me to come back. I think it's awesome. Big Ten puts on a great event.

And just seeing how much volleyball has grown, it's awesome to be a part of it during this time period. Teams are playing in MLB stadiums. They're playing in Wrigley soon, NBA, all of them you can name. And fans just keep showing up. And viewership numbers are going up drastically.

It's awesome to be ail part of it. And also pro leagues are growing in the states, which, growing up, you kind of feel like you have to go to Europe. But now that we have so many opportunities, us athletes can choose. And we have those awesome opportunities for us available after we graduate college here.

Q. Did you at any point look back on last season kind of in awe of how we were able to win and get to the Sweet 16 with the immense amount of injuries that you faced? And also how much did Stella play a role in being able to be that steadying force on the court?

KEEGAN COOK: Yeah, a year like no other, you'll remember it forever, and now on the other side of it have a lot of gratitude for it. We had a team, year three, pretty important year in a coaching transition that was ready to rock. And five weeks later we were down four pretty important players, four starters.

We knew we had some time, and we knew we had people that we wanted to coach. To their credit, they kept showing up. There wasn't a whole lot to do with the lineup card, which helped with decision-making. And sometimes you have to be in a position to just you have to become what you have to become.

It took some time. There were some hard nights. There were some special nights, too, especially at the end of the season, beating Purdue and Penn State at home to put ourselves in a position to host. Those were big moments for our program.

I like the people in my gym now. I know them a lot better after going through that. They don't feel like freshmen anymore. And Stella most of all, I love the growth that she's had in her two years within our program, and I love the way that our relationship has grown and how much trust I have in her, and how quickly we can solve problems together.

This is her team, and we're gonna take some special places the next couple years.

Q. Talk about your international experience. You've been a coach a lot of international events all over the world. How does that help you prepare for the Big Ten season?

KEEGAN COOK: You've got limited time to make decisions on those international tournaments. You bring a group of athletes together for one week. You've got to get everybody in the right roles, and then you go through some adversity, traveling overseas against teams that are well prepared and well experienced. You have to make decisions pretty quickly under some constraints. And that's probably the most beneficial part of it.

I think the volleyball world's getting smaller in the best way. We've got two athletes from overseas. We're looking forward to bringing some more over and sharing Minneapolis with the volleyball community.

So just knowing that that's happening, that recruit's changing, I feel grateful to have the opportunities to be over there and represent our country. And the times that I got to coach our athletes, are also pretty special to share those moments with them.

Q. (Off microphone)

KEEGAN COOK: As far as it goes with the athletes, lots of conversations early on, and not just one. I think everybody wants to play 10 more years in August, but come December, itself gets a little harder at the end of a season.

So just repeated conversations case-by-case with every athlete -- where are you in your career, where do you want to go, what are your academic goals? I think just frequent communication helps us be in a good place.

As far as recruiting down the line goes, we've been pretty meticulous about leaving space in our roster to bring players back for a fifth season, to add graduate transfers. We've had the opportunity to add quite a few transfers in our first three seasons and every single time it's gone well.

So we've had some smaller recruiting classes with a bit of intentionality knowing that there could be some opportunities to keep an athlete on our team for a fifth year or add another athlete who wants an amazing graduate experience.

So, yeah, our roster projections, we look like we're a few players short in '27 and '28. And then that's not by accident. And we're looking forward to welcoming a couple transfers here and the new fifth year's gonna make that easier.

Q. (Off microphone)?

MCKENNA WUCHERER: They're awesome. Keegan does a great job of just bringing in good people, good athletes who want to learn every single day. And a lot of them weren't expecting to step into starting roles, and they embraced it, they embraced the struggle at times, they embraced the joy, and they embraced the challenge that came with it. And I really admire that about them, being 18 years old, fresh out of high school and walking into the Big Ten and playing a starting role. It's a really tough thing to do and they took it with a lot of joy and mentality.

So it was awesome. And I honestly just did the best I could to just help them from a senior standpoint and just being there for them each and every day. When they had come off the court they'd ask me, what's open, what am I doing good, what am I doing bad? Just having that relationship with them has grown a lot and now that I get to share the court with them. It's gonna help us this year [question off microphone.

Q. (Off microphone)

KEEGAN COOK: Yeah, I think what makes her unique is she's a six-tool opposite, right? She can perform every skill at a really high level and the challenge here will be go from good to great. But, yeah, the kind of person that's easy to root for. Someone who shows up for teammates, someone who you'll have as much fun and practice as you will on a fishing trip in Montana with her.

But she's a different kind of athlete. And you know when you've got someone different and special and Carly is an easy one to pull for. A sixth rotation, receiving left-handed opposite, you don't find those every day but most of all just someone whose gonna show up for the biggest moments, in the biggest matches.

She's a competitor like these two are. And, yeah, early on in her journey here we're looking forward to seeing her do a lot of things in the path.

Q. Did she exceed expectations last year?

KEEGAN COOK: Again, expectations are a funny word in our world. But I think what's funny is she was -- the more responsibility we gave her the better she got, which is pretty rare. We had her as a three-rotation opposite and she was okay. But as soon as we made her a six-rotation opposite and let her pass, her game went to the next level. To be on the all-freshmen team with Stella in our conference is nothing small.

Q. (Off microphone)

KEEGAN COOK: There was a strange, besides the sadness you feel -- I think a great coach told me how you say no is more important than how you say yes -- to have to say no to those three athletes in the office and let them know their results are back from their X-rays and that their season is over, to have to do that three times, yeah, you can't help but feel despair.

But in this program, we've been willing, and we show up the next day and get after it. I think about the Seattle match. It's probably one that we'll remember. We had a tough loss at Oregon and went to Washington and lost the first set 25-12. Then slowly just kind of decided we're gonna be there for each other, for good or bad, and share in the misery a little bit, and slowly turn the tide of that match.

Had a flight canceled that next morning, spent the day in Seattle together. And I thought that was the moment where a team became a team. And it kind of was a metaphor for our season, that sometimes the worst things that happen to you become the best thing that happened to you in the long run. And that certainly is how it worked out for us last season.

Q. Stella, what was it like playing at the Pentagon last season?

STELLA SWENSON: It was really cool. I love getting to play new arenas and play in front of different crowds and obviously playing different teams, but that was the first time I officially stepped on the court because I redshirted my first year. All that came at me was just gratitude, gratitude for my teammates and gratitude for my coaches and my support staff and everyone. It was a full-circle moment of being on that court, like I'm finally here, I can finally show people what I've been working on.

Q. Are you excited to go back?

STELLA SWENSON: I'm so excited to go back.

Q. Coach, I know you've talked a lot about your excitement to have professional volleyball obviously in the states, but in Minnesota, but to also see Julia Hansen competing in Minnesota to start her professional career, just your level of excitement and pride to see that transition.

KEEGAN COOK: Yeah, it's fun to be a fan when you're done being a coach I'll tell you, I get to be a fan a lot longer for these guys than I get to be their coach, and I look forward to sitting quietly on the sideline and cheering and not having anything to tell them as far as their game's concerned.

No, I like that these guys get to cross paths with amazing players and coaches. I like that they get to see their future in front of their face, not 5,000 miles away.

So I don't think they fully grasp how many amazing people are gonna walk through our building and through our city, both cities, actually, and it's gonna be another just huge bonus to being able to be in Minnesota.

Q. You talked about the injuries. Is everyone back and able to participate in practices so far from last year?

KEEGAN COOK: Everyone's in a gym, and everyone's touching the ball. Everyone's jumping. That's all you're gonna get from me.

But, yeah, everyone's touching the ball and leaving the ground, and it feels good to share the court with them again.