Amy Atwell didn’t give herself much downtime during her stay Down Under.
The University of Hawaii forward had committed to return to the Rainbow Wahine basketball team for a sixth year before she headed back to Australia for the summer. Her first trip home in nearly two years was extended by the process of renewing her visa amid travel restrictions and she used those three months to set the foundation for her final season in Manoa.
“I was training with a team once or twice a week basketball-wise,” Atwell said. “Outside of that I was in the weight room four or five times a week doing cardio, doing a lot of strength training.
“I knew that one of my biggest issues in my first five years was injury and not being able to maintain my strength for a full season. … So it was definitely a huge focus this offseason.”
Atwell’s silky jumper remains among her most distinctive traits as she approaches UH’s career record for 3-pointers made. But her mid-range game and ability to get to the basket — enhanced by her added strength and endurance — have elevated her production as a super-senior.
The diversity in her game was on full display in a milestone performance against Cal State Bakersfield on Saturday. She delivered a career-high 33-points and fittingly joined the program’s 1,000-point club with a 3-pointer in a 73-66 win. She went 10-for-19 from the field with three 3-pointers, drew nine fouls leading to a 10-for-12 showing from the free-throw line and grabbed 10 rebounds in her third double-double of the season.
She was rewarded with her third Big West Player of the Week award of the season on Monday, joining former UH great Judy Mosley as the only Wahine players to earn three Big West weekly awards in a single season.
Mosley accomplished the feat in the 1989-90 season in UH’s first stint as a Big West member. Nani Cockett, Rayleen Howard, Crystal Lee and Tanya Smith won three weekly honors in a season in the Western Athletic Conference.
“I had to find other ways to score outside of the 3-point (shot),” Atwell said of her mindset entering the season. “My body physically has been in the best shape it’s ever been in, so I feel like I’m physically able to take that pounding more and draw those fouls and draw that contact and handle it.”
Atwell enters UH’s road trip to UC Santa Barbara and Cal State Northridge this week as the Big West’s top scorer at 19.1 points per game, while also ranking third in the conference in field-goal percentage at 44.2%.
She tops the conference at 2.2 3-point field goals per game with 31 total and is seven away from reaching Megan Tinnin’s UH career record of 167 set in 2011.
She’s also tied with teammate Daejah Phillips for the most free-throw attempts in the conference with 65 and has made a league-high 53.
“We saw glimpses of it last year,” UH coach Laura Beeman said of Atwell’s role as a triple threat. “In practice we would always try to put her in positions where we could post her up and she had to really work off the ball to score. … We’re now seeing Amy being able to sustain a level of play and a style of play she’s never been able to do.
“Amy’s going to go pro and she understands what she’s going to have to do in order to get the looks that she wants. So she is getting it done off the court to make these things happen.”
Atwell was a second-team All-Big West pick in last year’s truncated season and had decided prior to the conference tournament to take advantage of the NCAA ruling allowing players another year of eligibility.
“I was kind of tossing up last year between coming back and not, and I just decided at the end of the day that last year wasn’t the senior year that I wanted,” she said. “No fans in the stands, and the fans and the community here mean so much to me. … So at the end of the day it was I want to go out with a bang, I haven’t accomplished what I wanted to here yet, so at the end it was an easy decision.”
With last week’s two-game sweep of CSUB, the Wahine (7-7, 3-1 Big West) enter the week alone in second in the conference race and on a three-game winning streak. So while Atwell piles up individual accolades, it’s the collective mission that remains foremost among her motivations.
“Definitely trying to soak it in as much as I can as we go,” Atwell said after Saturday’s game. “But my job won’t be done until we win the conference championship at the end of the year.”