Brooke Kranda came to MSU volleyball as a shy, skinny girl. Not anymore.

EAST LANSING – When Brooke Kranda first walked onto the Michigan State campus in 2013, some people wondered what head coach Cathy George must have been thinking.

Or drinking.

Kranda was skinny, lanky and uncoordinated, standing 6-foot-6. Her confidence was low. So was her self-esteem. She admits she wasn’t yet a Division-I athlete.

Teammates weren’t the only ones scratching their head. So was Kranda.

“My first year, I was not as up to speed as everyone else,” said Kranda, a Westfield, Indiana, native, who plays outside/right side hitter for the Spartans. “I needed to get some meat on my bones and had to get in the weight room a bit more. I wasn’t ready to play at that level. The next year, I was still catching up a bit.”

That was then.

Laughing and joking with her coaches and teammates Friday afternoon inside Jenison Field House, Kranda is now just one of the girls. That is something she's longed for since redshirting her first season in East Lansing.

And it’s a sight that brings George to tears.

“You sometimes see something in someone and kind of take a little bit of a risk … She came in a tall girl trying to act not so tall. Her confidence and growth over the years have been tremendous,” George said during the team’s annual media day. “She understands what qualities she has and is very proud of them. She has gotten better and better.”

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Kranda started 24 games for the Spartans in 2016, leading MSU and the Big Ten Conference with 49 service aces. She also finished with more than two kills and nearly a block per game.

She appeared in 30 matches for the 25-9 Spartans, who made it to the second round of the NCAA Tournament before being upset by visiting Arizona.

Kranda also owns a school record with nine ace serves in a four-set win over Purdue

That dominance opened up the opportunity of a lifetime for Kranda, who was invited in June to be the lone MSU representative on the Big Ten Foreign Volleyball Tour in the Czech Republic, Austria, Slovenia and Italy.

There, the zoology major averaged two kills per game – and surprise, surprise – led the team with 13 aces.

“I couldn’t really turn down another trip to Europe,” Kranda joked. The Spartans went on a 10-day European tour at the end of May.

“It was an honor to be on that team," she said. "I got to become closer friends with girls I will play against. It will definitely make the fall a little more interesting.”

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Teammate and fellow senior Alyssa Garvelink said Kranda’s experience is already paying huge dividends for both her and the team.

“She had a lot of fun out there,” said Garvelink, who is a returning All-American from Holland. “Playing with people that aren’t on your team makes you loosen up a bit. I think she has brought that to our court and our team. It’s been a lot of fun to see her become her own person.”

Garvelink said she recalls those rough first couple of years for Kranda. She also said she's watched her teammate's confidence grow, watched her become a leader.

“She has really come into her own,” Garvelink said. “She’s got a little chip on her shoulder, and she has that swagger. We all kind of talk her up, but she hates it. Secretly, I think she likes it. She is great for us. She is huge across the net and hitting over blockers.”

Smooth. The Big Smooth.

Those are two of the nicknames Kranda has acquired since arriving to her first team practice. At first, it was a joke. Smooth was the last way anyone would’ve described her game, she said.

Now, it couldn’t fit more perfectly.

“I am really excited about her,” George said. “She dominated twice in Italy. Nobody could stop her. She is playing really high above the net and her aggressiveness has increased. At first, she was timid. She is a really great athlete and is 6-foot-6. She is not just 6-foot-6. And she now realizes that.

“I am really proud of her.”

The personal accolades are nice, but Kranda has bigger ideas for her final season at MSU.

“I think we can definitely go pretty far,” she said. “We always talk national title, but we are starting a little smaller this year with Big Ten title. That is something we have to do to put ourselves in a better position come tourney time. So, we are working on that first.”

Contact Cody Tucker at (517) 377-1070 or cjtucker@lsj.com and follow him on Twitter @CodyTucker_LSJ.