Whenever Tori McKinney and her Gophers teammates are going too fast in practice, assistant coach Aaron Horn will pull out a speeding ticket as a helpful reminder for them to slow down.

That’s something McKinney has struggled with as the freshman transitioning to the college game.

“It’s so easy to just go fast but every day in practice, I get speeding tickets,” she said.

But if any part of transitioning to the college game has been hard for McKinney, it hasn’t looked that way on the court. She poured in a career-high 25 points on Sunday against Penn State and was subsequently named the U.S. Basketball Writers Association national freshman of the week on Tuesday.

McKinney, who will next hit the court with her teammates on Sunday at 2 p.m. when they play host to Illinois at Williams Arena, is now averaging 10.2 points a game to help fill some of the scoring void created when junior Mara Braun was lost to a foot injury early this season.

“What she’s doing right now is very unique, but it’s also something that we really, really need,” coach Dawn Plitzuweit said this week.

McKinney, a 6-foot-1 guard, is second on the team in points scored and steals while she leads the Gophers with seven blocks and is third on the team in assists, giving the U a little bit of everything.

Her adjustment to the college game, she said, was made easier by the Gophers’ summer workouts and preseason, which prepared her for what she’s facing now.

Fifteen games into her college career, McKinney believes her biggest area of growth has been confidence in her shooting, something she said her teammates have helped her with.

“At first, I was super nervous, as every freshman would be.” McKinney said. “But just my teammates being around, talking to me, encouraging me all the time has just given me the confidence and the ability to just go in and take my shot, so that’s been really good.”

That’s something her coach has noted, too, as McKinney, who helped lead Minnetonka to a state title last year, adjusts to the college game.

“Her teammates and I think our coaches have encouraged her to be that type of player — hunt open shots, take open shots — and she’s done a really good job of that,” Plitzuweit said. “I think she’s done a really good job, and that’s something that she’s continued to grow and evolve and improve in.”

And with Braun relegated to watching from the bench after foot surgery — McKinney said the upper classman has been helpful to her from the sidelines — her emergence has been necessary for Minnesota, which is now 14-1 overall and searching for its third straight conference victory (2-1).

“She’s someone that we rely on a great deal to make things happen, and she’s performing at a really, really high level,” Plitzuweit said. “Now you just have to continue to just do what you do and not try to do too much and figure out what that all looks like.”

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