David Lucas celebrates Oregon State's upset of then-No. 11 Washington on Saturday. AP

This year we've seen a lot of former and current walk-ons shed practice-fodder roles to become starters, even stars, on their teams. But no ex-scrub has had the impact of Oregon State's 6-foot-8, 246-pound forward David Lucas. Just three years removed from garbage time, the fifth-year senior from Tigard, Ore., is leading the Beavers with 17.6 points and 6.6 rebounds per game. On Monday, a day after his 23 points and 10 rebounds helped sink No. 11 Washington, he was named the Pac-10 Player of the Week for the second time this year -- not bad considering he is still getting into playing shape after missing the first 10 games with a surgically repaired right big toe.

"We're really clicking now," says Lucas, who has averaged 21 points and 10 rebounds over the Beavers' last four games, three of them wins. "This is what I've been waiting for."

This is what a lot of people who know Lucas, the son of former Portland Trail Blazer great Maurice, have been waiting for. An acknowledged late bloomer -- "I just starting shaving recently," he says -- Lucas has not always had the passion for hoops he has now. He played well enough in grammar and middle school to make all-star teams, but he didn't want to make the commitment necessary to play at Tigard High School, outside Portland. "At that point I was more interested in working and making money than playing basketball," he says.

When he was 14, he worked at a retirement home serving food and as a host at a local restaurant. His junior year he decided to give the game another try, and made the junior varsity squad. He moved up to varsity his senior year and earned team-MVP honors. But he was still 6-foot-4, 175 pounds with two years of high-school experience. No major colleges gave him a glance. Lucas was about to go to Willamette, a private college in Salem, in the fall of 2000, when he was accepted to OSU right before school started. He talked to Ritchie McKay's staff about trying to walk on the following year and was told to hit the weight room -- hard. He also played pickup twice a day at the Dixon Student Rec Center and earned the nickname "the Dixon Legend." One of his frequent opponents was Beaver's assistant coach Jason Tyrus, who invited him to work out with the team in the spring.

After rising every morning at 6 a.m. to do conditioning drills with the team, Lucas walked into the locker room one day to find his name above a locker. "That felt great," he says. "I really had no idea if I had any chance of making the team."

Making the team and impacting it are two different things, of course. In his first year Lucas totaled three points and three rebounds in 29 minutes of action. Nevertheless, McKay promised him a scholarship the next year. Then the coach left for New Mexico and new coach John Jay wasn't impressed by Lucas' work ethic. "It wasn't that he had a bad attitude," says Jay. "He had no attitude. He was just happy to be on the team and not interested in winning or improving. He didn't understand how hard you had to work in practice at this level. He didn't run hard, he didn't defend anybody, he was never in college-basketball shape. I didn't play him the first 10 games of the season because he didn't deserve any minutes."

Against Arizona, starting forward Brian Jackson was injured, opening the door for Lucas. He scored 12 points and had six rebounds in the game, and kept improving. He ended up starting the last three games of the season. "Sitting in the preseason made me realize how much I wanted this," says Lucas. "I finally saw how much I wanted to improve." Last season he made a huge leap, averaging 17.2 points and 6.9 rebounds and making the all-conference team. "You don't often see guys scoring more in college than they did in high school," says Jay. "The great thing about David is that when he got so much attention last year for his rags-to-riches story, he didn't stop working."

Despite the setback of his toe injury, Lucas continues to improve this year. "He keeps breaking barriers for himself," says Jay. "Sometimes you don't see how it could possibly go in. It's almost like the ball has eyes. It's like it appreciates how softly he shoots it and wants to go in for him."

With Lucas and junior transfer Nick DeWitz, in the lineup together for more than a month, the Beavers have shown they can win at home, going 6-1 in conference play. To have a shot at their first NCAA appearance since 1990, however, they have to win on the road, where they are 0-5 in the Pac-10. Only two of their remaining six regular-season games are in Corvallis.

But, Lucas isn't worried. He thinks the Beavers are, like him, just late bloomers. "We have to take the momentum we've created with our last three wins at home on the road with us," he says. "I think we will. We've come a long way."

A little hoops history

Twenty six years ago, when the Tennessee Lady Vols traveled to Baton Rouge to take on the LSU Lady Tigers (then known as the BenGals, believe it or not), both teams were ranked in the top 5. LSU had the Aussie twin towers, Julie Gross and Maree Bennie, who is now better known as the mother of Seattle Storm star Lauren Jackson. Tennessee had Cindy Brogdon, Cindy Noble and Holly Warlick, now better known as Pat Summitt's top assistant. It was hard to know how many fans in attendance were there to see their game, the first of a double-header with the men. Apparently LSU men's coach Dale Brown didn't count any. When the women's teams fought their way to a 74-74 tie, Brown demanded they finish their game in the auxiliary gym so the men could take the floor as scheduled. Frantic negotiation ensued, and the women were allowed three minutes -- of running time -- to complete their game, which LSU won, 85-80.

What a difference a quarter-century or so makes. Last Thursday, when the No. 5 Lady Vols visited the top-ranked Lady Tigers, an standing-room-only crowd of 15,233 fans showed up -- a record for a women's game and the fourth biggest crowd ever at the Pete Maravich Center. There was no question who they were there to see. Students wearing Mardi Gras beads started heckling the Lady Vols as soon as they stepped on the floor. They kept it up as Seimone Augustus and Sylvia Fowles -- two top players who both had  turned down Tennessee to play at LSU -- combined for 32 points and 23 rebounds to beat the Lady Vols, for the first time in two years, 68-58.

That wasn't the only women's attendance record set last week. When Maryland hosted Duke on Sunday, an ACC-record 17,243 fans (including Governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.) showed up. The Terps didn't handle the extra attention -- or Duke's defense -- very well, however. They shot 23-for-68 (34 percent) from the field and 1-of-6 from the line in a 60-49 loss, their 11th straight to the Blue Devils. But as Duke, a team that crumbled against Connecticut in front of its own record-setting crowd a few years ago, can tell you, having the opportunity to experience -- and get over -- stage fright is an important step to becoming a powerhouse team.