LSU freshman forward Ayana Dunning lives for basketball.But her ability to dominate the hardwood came to a temporary halt last summer when she underwent knee surgery.”I saw a young lady going through something she had never ever been faced with,” said LSU women’s basketball assistant coach Travis Mays. “She’s never had to deal with a major injury . . . she was always used to being able to count on her body and go out and play no matter what.”Basketball is a family tradition for the Dunnings. Her father, Alfred Dunning, played basketball in college and semi-pro, and Ayana Dunning said he has been her biggest influence before and after her surgery.Alfred Dunning saw how difficult it was for his daughter to come to grips with her injury.”She was always used to [playing] a lot of minutes in high school,” he said. “She always looked forward to challenges, but she ended up feeling like a nobody when she got to college.”Her mother, Charlotte Dunning, said it was difficult to convince Ayana that recovering from her surgery would make her grow stronger.”It occurred to me that her whole identity was wrapped up in being a ball player,” Charlotte Dunning said. “She had been playing since fourth grade, and she’d been on everybody’s radar since about seventh grade. So her whole self-concept was that of a basketball player.”The Columbus, Ohio, native started all 77 games in her four years at Eastmoor Academy and set school scoring and rebound records, with 1,358 points and 1,009 boards in her career. She was also named a 2008 McDonald’s All-American and the Central District Player of the Year on her way to being highly recruited across the country.Mays noticed Dunning’s lack of confidence after her surgery, but with time, he said she began healing both physically and mentally, and she gradually regained the talent Mays saw while on the recruiting trail in Ohio.”I was actually recruiting a young lady who was playing with Ayana named Jantel Lavender, who is now the starting center at Ohio State,” Mays said. “I saw [Dunning’s] size, her footwork and how good her hands were. I was extremely excited about being able to recruit Jantel, but then the coach told me he thought Ayana could possibly be better than Jantel, so at that point I got extremely excited.”In her first season as a Lady Tiger, Dunning has played in nine games, including her first career start in LSU’s 76-63 loss Jan. 3 to Connecticut. In a career-high 34 minutes, she led the team with 12 points and nine rebounds.She is shooting 54 percent from the field and averages 6.1 points and 4.4 rebounds per game.LSU women’s basketball coach Van Chancellor said a big difference he sees in Dunning after her surgery is her weight loss — she dropped eight pounds in six days during Christmas break — but he said her increased playing time helps reveal her outstanding performance.”She’s lost a ton of weight … that’s really where it’s at,” Chancellor said following LSU’s 64-50 win against Nebraska on Jan. 1. “She’s gotten in shape. We finally got enough practice time to get her some conditioning.”Dunning is known to her teammates as Ya-Ya, a nickname she said her brother gave her when he was 1-year old.”He couldn’t say my name, so he just started calling me ‘Ya-Ya,'” she said. “It became a family nickname, and everybody just caught on.”Sophomore guard Katherine Graham described Dunning as a cool and down-to-earth teammate.”She’s very mild-mannered and quiet, and she likes to joke,” Graham said. “She’s very, very, very funny, the jokester of the team. She gets her jokes in quietly. You always have to watch her and see what she’s saying.”After the Lady Tigers’ New Year’s Day win against Nebraska, Chancellor praised Dunning’s efforts. She scored 11 points in the game.”I told her today she’d come from seventh post all the way up to the top of the heap,” he said. “And somebody said, ‘Coach, I didn’t think we had but six posts.’ And I said, ‘She was seventh because she was that far down and out of shape.’ She’s come back, and I’m really pleased for her.”—-Contact Rachel Whittaker at [email protected]