Success comes in threes

Ashlee Davis has hit from behind the arc and in the classroom.

By Rick Waters

Ashley Davis wasn’t a three-point shooter in high school. In fact, she thinks she can count the number of long-range shots she attempted on two hands.

It just wasn’t her game.

She had inside post moves that were good enough to earn all-state honors at San Antonio Taft.

Now, a little more than three years later, she stands third on TCU’s career three-pointer list with 145 made.

What happened?

Horned Frogs coach Jeff Mittie says it was a little recruiting luck.

He had been hot on the trail of Davis as a future Frog post player. But one summer in San Antonio, he caught a glimpse of Davis’s smooth stroke from behind the arc.

As Davis’s summer league team emerged from the locker room at halftime, they began to warm up for the second half. A casual exercise, they were taking shots they normally wouldn’t in a game, including Davis, who was draining three-pointers from all over the court.

“She hit like seven or eight in a row, and I had to do a double-take to make sure I was really seeing it,” Mittie recalls.

Mittie began rethinking how Davis would fit in as a Frog, if he could get her.

“The first time we talked on the phone, the first thing he asked me was about that summer game and how often I shot three-pointers,” Davis remembers.

Says Mittie: “I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a fluke.”

It wasn’t. Davis finished Taft as an inside player, but when Mittie snagged her for the Lady Frogs, he knew he had someone who could create mismatches with her height. But he didn’t know if it would translate into games.

“It’s easy to see a player in a role like that, but they have to work hard to make it happen. And that’s all Ashley Davis has been about,” Mittie said.

Davis, a junior and two-time team captain, stayed during the summers to practice and get stronger. That paid off throughout her career with some key shots from behind the arc.

Against Oklahoma in November, Davis made five of seven three-pointers in the first half. A year ago against UCLA, she nailed five of six and tied a career high with 17 points. When the Lady Frogs needed four overtimes to beat East Carolina in 2004, a Davis three sealed a 125-119 win with 39 seconds left.

Now she’s inched up TCU’s all-time list now and will move into second early next season.
Davis has also shown a focus on academics. In December, she graduated with a degree in entrepreneurial management and has begun work on a master’s in education administration this spring.

Always goal-oriented, Davis knew she could finish her undergraduate degree in three-and-a-half years.

“I think I can get my master’s done by the time I’m done playing basketball. That’s another one of my goals,” she said.

And like one of her many threes, it’s a good bet she makes that too. — RW

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