Ball State women’s basketball sophomore Ashlynn Brooke is used to having things taken away from her.
Lengths of her season at the high school level, a scholarship to play at her once-dream school, the end of her first season in collegiate basketball, and her second season of collegiate basketball were all taken away or prematurely ended due to her injury.
Brooke has torn her ACL once and torn her meniscus twice, and she also had a tumor in her leg in middle school. But she had worked through lengthy rehab processes over and over again. Brooke has been able to work herself back to form from every situation. Ball State women’s basketball head coach Brady Sallee said her injuries are temporary; it is how she comes back from them that tells the story.
“I think her story is going to be pretty cool,” Sallee said.
Ball State women’s basketball's then-freshman Brooke went down just a minute into her playing time Feb, 21, 2024, during a game against Central Michigan.
Brooke said she instantly knew something was seriously wrong.
“I was just mad in general,” Brooke said. “… It never really hit me that I had torn it.”
She had torn her ACL and meniscus in her right leg.
Once she found out it was torn, she said teammates and coaches called her to tell her they were sorry. Brooke was in disbelief.
Brooke was aware of the next steps, as all her injuries stemmed from just her left leg in high school.
“[It was] honestly devastating. There were a lot of lows because the tricky part was the meniscus repair. You can’t walk,” Brooke said. “There were six weeks of me being in a locked brace, not walking. It was a tricky time.”
To make things worse, her injury could not have come at a worse time, she said. The Ball State women’s basketball staff wanted to get her into surgery as soon as possible, but it did not work with the surgeon's schedule.
Brooke went into surgery on March 11, 2024, and the next morning at 7 a.m., Ball State assistant athletic trainer Brad Bunten picked her up and got to work in rehab. The same day, the Cardinals departed Muncie and headed to Cleveland for the Mid-American Conference (MAC) Tournament. Bunten said Brooke worked with a physical therapist back home while the staff was away.
Brooke has been away from the court for an extended period, but the sophomore grew up with the sport of basketball.
Brooke’s father was a coach, and she also had three older sisters whom he coached. Brooke said she never got anything handed to her with her father as the coach; if anything, he made her work harder.
“I miss playing for him because I would show up at school, and [my] dad's there and my family's there,” Brooke said. “My uncle is a math teacher at my high school. So my entire family was at my high school, and I got to see them every day.”
While her dad no longer coaches, he is now the school's principal. Brooke played out her high school career at Pioneer High School in a “one stoplight” town roughly ten minutes north of Logansport.
Associate head coach Audrey McDonald-Spencer recruited Brooke starting in the eighth grade. Brooke went to an elite camp, and Brooke said it was an instant click.
“They were one of my first ‘this is real’-type offers,” Brooke said.
Brooke’s dream school was Purdue. Her parents, aunts, uncles and more all root for the Boilermakers. When Purdue women’s basketball made her an offer, she said it was almost like a dream come true since her family had been preaching “play at Mackey Arena” since she was ten.
However, as Brooke went through injuries in high school, colleges dropped their offers. One of those schools was Purdue.
“They did not even contact me,” Brooke said.
Through it all, the Ball State staff reassured Brooke they had her back, always keeping their offer on the table.
Sallee said he always tried to make decisions for the team where he could lay his head down at night. He said he knew Brooke was a Ball State type of kid.
“If you take the injuries out of the equation, which none of us ever can, I think everyone would have seen it by now,” Sallee said. “It is still there. We just have to be patient.”
Patience is what Brooke and Bunten worked on through their rehab session five to seven times every week since she was first injured over a year ago. Although she can get tired of training with Bunten regularly, Brooke said the pair has fun together.
“He tries to see the positive side of things, but he has also been super respectful when he knows I am having a mental day,” Brooke said.
Bunten said it is a hard task to have any athlete put full trust into a trainer, but Brooke went in full steam ahead and has seen the benefits from rehab.
“Some of those early days we were spending an hour and a half, two hours just in one rehab session … That is five to seven days a week we are around each other,” Bunten said. “What has been good about it is that we are not having two-hour conversations just about her knee. The stuff we talk about every day makes it more enjoyable.”
Sallee said it is a real mental grind to recover from an injury of that magnitude. Although the team has great doctors and trainers, the mental work is on the athlete.
“Gosh, can you imagine the mind tricks that go on with something like this?” Sallee said. “We knew, just with the timing of everything last year, that losing [the 2024-25 season] was going to be a possibility.”
Brooke said she and Sallee have had many discussions on whether to take a medical redshirt and continued to have conversations throughout the season.
“He hears me out. He'd listen to me,” Brooke said. “It's the same thing with Brad. The three of us, we communicate.”
Sallee said there was never really a time frame for Brooke to get back by a certain date. Instead, they focused on getting Brooke back to 100 percent.
The classification of medical redshirts happens after the season, Sallee said. The staff documents how much playing time is given to each player, and that documentation is submitted to the NCAA. The classification for a redshirt or medical redshirt has to be submitted to the NCAA, and they then approve or disapprove.
Sallee also said redshirtting gets looked at during the end of her eligibility. Ball State might apply now for the year, but it might not be granted until her normal four years of eligibility are up.
“There is a lot of red tape that goes into it, but in her instance, it is just a matter of paperwork. She will get the year back,” Sallee said. “I think that was one thing for her. She wanted a full year, and she did not want to waste any more years. I certainly agree and back that up 100 percent.”
Although Brooke has not been seen on the court during games this year for the Cardinals, she has been working daily on the practice floor to improve her game. She said she’s been able to play some scout team and participate in as much practice as she can — all the while she is still rehabbing her knee back to full health.
The sophomore said she is trying to get better every day for the 2025-26 season ahead instead of lying back.
Bunten said Brooke is still rehabbing by design, and he is working with her to stay on top of everything. He said she entered the “maintenance” part of rehab, where she has gotten to a good spot. Now, the focus is on staying on top of it to prevent something from ever happening again.
“I don’t know that you could go through rehab any better,” Sallee said. “She’s worked so hard on the floor.”
While injuries may have derailed her high school career, Brooke said she is currently finding her way to get back on track after dealing with an injury at the collegiate level.
“There is not a day that goes by that I cannot wait to play,” Brooke said.
Contact Elijah Poe via email at elijah.poe@bsu.edu or on X @ElijahPoe4.
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