INDIANAPOLIS — Alexus Atchley has played just nine fewer minutes over the last four games than she did in the first three years of her career.

In Washington’s Final Four run, she has not seen the bench — playing all 160 minutes of the NCAA tournament. But through her first three years, she hardly got off it.

“It’s,” Atchley said before pausing, “I don’t really know … It’s like a dream come true really. I don’t think I could have written it better myself.”

The former Colorado walk-on, turned Washington transfer walk-on, turned scholarship player is now a senior captain and starting for the Huskies during their best season ever.

After Washington lost starting guard Brianna Ruiz for the season in January with an injury, Atchley has stepped into a starting role for the first time ever and exceled. She leads the team shooting 40.7 percent behind the arc.

She’ll make just the 21st start of her career when the Huskies (26-10, 11-7 Pac-12) take on Syracuse (29-7, 13-3 Atlantic Coast) at 8:30 p.m. on Sunday at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in the Final Four.

“Look this story up, because it goes deeper than just coming in after an injury to one of our starters,” Washington head coach Mike Neighbors said. “… We lucked into her.”

Neighbors had hardly seen Atchley play basketball before she wound up at Washington. He drove her around campus on a golf cart before she joined the school and realized that she was  “somebody you wanted on your team.”

Atchley had played one year at Colorado, though it constituted just 17 minutes on the court over eight games. She had followed Jonas Chatterton, a former coach of hers who was an assistant for the Buffaloes, to Colorado. (Chatterton is now an assistant coach for Oregon State, which is also in the Final Four, playing Connecticut on Sunday)

But because Colorado wouldn’t give her a scholarship, Atchley left.

“I just needed to make a decision that’s best for me and my family,” Atchley said.

Her sister ran track at Washington and Atchley knew the team was looking for a walk-on, so she visited and later joined the team.

In her first season with the Huskies, she played nearly every game (28), but averaged just 4.4 minutes off the bench for a team that keeps a tight rotation. But Atchley said Neighbors let her be like any other player and treated the walk-ons well — unlike her experience at Colorado.

The real reward came after the season, when Neighbors announced at the team banquet that Atchley would be on scholarship.

“As she was coming up, getting her award, we said we have one other announcement,” Neighbors said. “‘We just want to let Lex know that from this point on she’s a scholarshipped member of our team from now on.’ It was a really cool moment around her teammates. They all rallied around her.”

But her first scholarship season came with a nagging hamstring injury that contributed to her time off the court. She managed just 10 appearances and no more than 31 minutes.

She was on the verge of having a year like she currently is, Neighbors said, but she never got the chance because of an injury that “really, really set her back.”

During the summer, Atchley worked on skill development. After workouts, assistant coach Fred Castro would say to Neighbors, “Alexus is really coming on. She’s really getting this,” Neighbors recalled.

But it wasn’t until Ruiz tore her ACL in January that Atchley got her shot. She was immediately thrust into the starting role.

“It’s amazing, her growth throughout the season and her ability to be able to step into a role that she didn’t start out being, and she’s done it absolutely brilliantly,” point guard Kelsey Plum said. “Credit to Lex for coming into her own, and she’s a big part of why we’re here.”

She’s averaged seven points, 3.4 rebounds and is shooting 42.7 percent from 3-point land in 36.3 minutes per game as a starter. Atchley had made just eight shots and averaged 0.5 points per game prior to this year.

Nearly every career-high set over the last three seasons has been topped this year. She was Washington’s most efficient shooter in its Elite Eight win over Stanford, shooting 4-for-5 from the field.

The player that once couldn’t even earn a scholarship is now an integral part of a Final Four team.

Said Neighbors: “She just continues to have really a truly storybook finish to her career.”

Published on April 2, 2016 at 8:24 pm

Contact Jon: jrmettus@syr.edu | @jmettus