Making the transition from high school basketball to Division 1 at an Ivy League school such as the University of Pennsylvania is a difficult task. Doing so while recovering from a severe knee injury only makes the task tougher.

That was the scenario Ashley Russell faced after tearing her anterior cruciate ligament in a lacrosse game at Braintree High last June. Russell had surgery in June, and was cleared to play at the end of December. The 5-foot-10 inch guard is slowly working her way into the lineup for the Quakers, who are off to their best start since 2001.

Russell had a key 3-pointer in a 56-41 win over Dartmouth Feb. 6 and has the highest 3-point percentage (43.8 percent) on the squad. She had a season-high 6 points in a victory over Harvard. Russell, who helped lead the Wamps to a pair of Division 1 state titles, only had to look to her famity for advice while rehabbing her knee. Her sister, Taylor, a junior on the Babson women’s team, tore the ACL in both knees in high school.

Q. How difficult was it to rehab from the injury?

A: Seeing Taylor go through it sort of helped me going into it. Knowing that she recovered from both knees in six months gave me the comfort to know that I’d be able to play this season. Taylor was very helpful through it all.

Q. How did it feel to finally be back on the court?

A. We went to Hawaii over Christmas break so the first time I got to play was in Hawaii, which was very cool. My knee feels great. I’m not wearing a brace, and it honestly feels like nothing happened.

Q. Was there a silver lining at all to being hurt?

A. I could work on my shot a lot before I got cleared to play, so I think that made my shot even better. I’d work on my form a lot during practice. I think my shot is back to where it used to be or maybe even better than it was before the injury.

Q. You were highly recruited. How difficult was the selection process?

A. Honestly it wasn’t that tough, although narrowing down the schools can be hard because every coach tells you what you want to hear. In the end it was between Penn and Bentley. I loved Bentley, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity of going to an Ivy League school and playing D1 basketball.

Q. How are you balancing the academic demands of an Ivy League school and athletics?

A. There are a lot of academic demands. Classes are really tough but our coaches are very understanding. They know we have a lot of homework and how stressful it can be. During first semester, freshmen have study hall three times a week and that helped with homework. It’s been pretty easy to manage because of the resources we have.

Q. Did you expect the team to get off to such a strong start?

A. I didn’t know what to expect coming in because we lost four really good players who played a huge role on the team last year. I am very happy with how we’re doing. I don’t think people expected us to do this well.’’

Q. How is the team handling being undefeated in the league?

A. We’re all really excited but we know anyone can beat anyone on a given night. We call the season a 14-game tournament because we don’t have an end of the season tourney, so whoever had the best regular-season record in the Ivy League wins it all. Our coach doesn’t take any game lightly. We’ll celebrate over the weekend if we win both games but then we forget about it and move on to next week.

Q. Does the team have any pregame rituals?

A. Before every game we have a designated “hype man’’ to hype the team up. We have one person who gets the team excited for a game and usually they have a speech prepared. I had mine before the Villanova game, because my teammate from Braintree (Bridget Herlihy)plays there. I gave a speech but we lost.

Q. What do you like to do when you’re not playing basketball?

A. I like to hang out with the team and we go out and get meals together, usually at Cheesecake Factory. We hang out at a teammate’s apartment and on Monday’s we have Bachelor Monday and we watch “The Bachelor.’’ I like to watch “Grey’s Anatomy’’ too.

John Johnson

For full interview go to bostonglobe.com/south.