Video

RUSTON -- There are basketball families and then there is Ashley Santos' basketball family.

Ashley, a red-shirt junior guard who will suit up this year for Louisiana Tech, comes from an authentic basketball family.

James Naismith couldn't be prouder of a clan.

"Both of my parents played," Ashley said. "My dad played professionally with my uncle. My uncle played at Wichita State and introduced my mom, who played on the women's team there, to my dad who was working as a graduate assistant. All of my siblings play."

When the Santos' get together for family outings, it must be one competitive game of horse.

"It was definitely the first sport introduced to me, or at least that we talked about," Ashley said. "I did get to participate in other sports, to try them and get the feel of it. Eventually, (basketball) is what I picked anyways."

That should come as no surprise.

If you start with her parents, Ashley comes from great basketball stock. Her father, Jose, played college basketball at Bethany Nazarene College (now Southern Nazarene University) in Oklahoma. He then played internationally in Puerto Rico before also playing for the Puerto Rican national team.

"They got to travel to different countries; he has played in China, Russia and places like that," Ashley said.

Her mother, Lori (Findahl), lettered at Wichita State from 1986 through 1989, where she still ranks sixth all-time in career rebounds per game with 8.4. She pulled down 10.3 rebounds per game during the 1986-87 campaign.

Ashley was born with a basketball gene. As were her siblings.

Her younger sister, Sidney, age 19, is currently a sophomore at Oakland University, where like Ashley, she redshirted this past season.

Eighteen-year-old brother K.J. is one of the top recruits in the country. Currently at Vermont Academy, the 6-foot-9-inch, 200-pound shooting guard has offers from the likes of Oklahoma, Iowa, DePaul, Wichita State and Xavier to just name a few.

And then there is the youngest of the Santos'. According to Ashley, 13-year-old Nate is playing AAU basketball for her dad in Chicago.

"Basketball runs in my blood," Ashley said.

Ashley had a stellar prep career herself at Geneva High School in Illinois where she was a four-time all-area selection by both the Daily Herald and the Kane County Chronicle.

She was named to the Upstate Eight River Division All-Conference team in 2010 and 2011 and despite missing the majority of the 2012 season with the first of two knee injuries, she was named second team all-state by the Illinois Coaches Association.

She was also a McDonald's All-American nominee as a senior while being ranked as the 89th overall prospect in the country (34th at her position) by ESPN.com HoopGurlz.

All of the honors and success on the hardwood brought Division I coaches from across the country to Geneva, trying to convince Ashley that their program was the one for her.

"My recruiting process was overwhelming," said Ashley, who is a big fan of Jane Austen novels. "By the time I was a junior, I was already ranked in the ESPN top 100. I had been recruited by schools in the south, on the east coast, on the west coast, and I really struggled to narrow down what I wanted in a school.

"At first I thought I wanted to go far away so I was looking at California schools. I made sure to look at all my options in the midwest. I was trying to make a decision on staying home or going away. Marquette came up, and I wanted to play in the Big East. At the time they had some of the best competition. That was an attraction right off the bat."

So the 5-foot-11-inch shooting guard signed with Marquette over the likes of Southern Cal, Notre Dame and Purdue.

"It was only an hour and a half drive from my house," Ashley said. "It was close to home with good competition. School is very important to me. My high school was very competitive academically. I liked being in that environment. The fact Marquette was a private school helped. They just had a lot to offer in those three categories."

Towards the end of her senior season at Geneva, Ashley suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament at the McDonalds Showcase, a tournament for the top teams in Illinois.

"Not eight minutes in, I was just running down the court and tore my ACL," she said. "I had the surgery immediately. I went into Marquette that summer and continued to rehab. By the time the season hit, I had another surgery to clean some things up."

After a lot of hard work in the training room and on the court preparing for her college debut, Ashley had another setback. Just days before she was supposed to return to the court in a Thanksgiving tournament at Texas A&M, she tore the ACL again.

"It was the same knee," she said. "The rest of the year was rehab."

The one positive was the fact it allowed her to work closely with a young Marquette assistant coach named Tyler Summitt.

"Ashley and I developed a close relationship four years ago because of her injury," Summitt said. "When the team would practice, she would watch and then afterwards, we would do a workout together. A lot of times it was basic fundamental work that she was able to do. I think it meant a lot to her that I was willing to help her when she knew she wasn't going to be able to play for a long time."

In addition to developing a close relationship with Summitt through work on the court, Ashley also received plenty of encouragement and help from her roommate, Brooke Pumroy.

"That's my sister," said Brooke, who made the move to Louisiana Tech with Ashley. "That's who I've been within 10 feet of for the past three years, 24 hours a day for 7 days a week. We'd walk to class together. If I had to go to the bathroom she did too because we ate and drank at the same time. She's shy until you get to know her and then she opens up."

Ashley finally got an opportunity to don a Marquette uniform in 2013-14 as the knee appeared strong enough to hold up. However, after having missed more than an entire year of actual action on the floor, the playing time didn't come easily.

"I worked hard to earn those minutes," Ashley said. "I really did not have a good idea on how many minutes a night I would get. I got minutes every now and then."

Following her sophomore season, turmoil began to hit the Marquette program. Just a few weeks after Summit announced his departure to accept the head coaching position at Louisiana Tech, Marquette head coach Terri Mitchell was let go. The future of the program was unstable.

As far as Ashley was concerned, she needed a fresh start ... as did her best friend Brooke.

"The first goal was to just try and get the transfer paper," Ashley said. "The process was long. At first they did not want to let us go. I talked to the head coach, the athletic director, and I almost had to talk to the president. It was quite a process."

However, once Mitchell was no longer the head coach, the Marquette administration granted full releases to both players, allowing them to sign with any Division I program outside of the Big East.

"That is when we were able to talk to coach Tyler, and he opened the door for us," Ashley said. "We started talking to the rest of the staff to see what Louisiana Tech had to offer. I just remember being with Brooke and looking at the buildings and University information on the Tech website."

Although they had never stepped a foot on the LA Tech campus and weren't 100 percent sure of everything surrounding the institution, both Ashley and Brooke were confident in one element -- Tyler Summitt.

So after signing financial aid agreements to play at Tech, Ashley, Brooke and their families packed up and ventured to the southern states, stepping foot on the soil of Louisiana Tech's campus for the first time ever to tour the facilities and institution. It was a leap of faith that is now paying off for both players.

"Coach Tyler preaches blind trust when he talks about defensive strategy, but this is actually the perfect scenario where I applied that to my life," Ashley said. "I trusted that Louisiana Tech was where I needed to be and my faith in Coach Tyler encouraged that decision."

Having to sit out year No. 1 in Ruston was something that, in all honesty, Ashley needed. Between two separate ACL injuries to the same knee, the mental aspect of coming back from those injuries and the emotional toll that the transition to college basketball can take on some players, it was what the proverbial doctor ordered.

"Ashley has had a lot of hard circumstances to overcome," Summitt said. "She sat out as a freshman due to injury. When she returned, she wanted it all back at once. She wanted to immediately be back to the player she was, but that was unrealistic.

"I think this past season was beneficial for her to sit out because it allowed her to be patient with herself. Ashley was able to ease back into playing basketball and I think we will see the benefits."

The self-proclaimed introvert agrees with her head coaches assessment.

"There were a lot of positives," said Ashley, who is majoring in psychology with the desire to one day be a sports psychologist. "For me it was a really big jump for my academics. I took advantage of that. I took a lot of my harder classes to get them out of the way so by this season, I did not have to worry as much about taking those courses.

"I had an entire year to train and work on my game. Just because I did not play in the games, does not mean I did not have the extra benefits of working out and practicing. I got acclimated to coach Tyler's system. That was a big advantage."

As July rolls into August and the start of the season is just a few months away, Ashley is honest about what it will be like when the ball is tossed into the air on Nov. 14 at Wisconsin.

"I think I will have some nerves," she said. "It will be a mix of excitement and nerves that just means it is game time. I have not felt that in such a long time. I know right at tip off will be special for me because I have been waiting forever."

And what awaits Lady Techster fans from the oldest child of the Santos basketball family?

"I hope they see a spark," she said. "I am constantly working hard. I just want to get things done on both the defensive and offensive end. Whatever I can do to help my teammates get the win is what you can expect from me."

Maybe the bigger question is what expectations Ashley Santos will have for herself after so much time off. Hopefully a hobby of hers will help with mentally keeping things in perspective.

"I journal because I am pursuing a sports dream," she said. "I started (journaling) because I was talking to a sports psychologist for a while. He is a friend from back home. He recommended I get a journal to keep track of my thoughts. It's helped a lot."

After more than a year off from competitive basketball, the road to that sports dream will resume this fall. And the basketball skills inherited from the genes of Jose and Lori and refined through years of hard work by Ashley will once again be on display ... but this time in the friendly confines of the Thomas Assembly Center.