Everywhere you look, no matter the level, there is a basketball player filling up the stat sheet at a historic level. It could be a high school phenom scoring an insane amount of points, a college star notching record triple-doubles, or an NBA player doing something we never thought was possible. Grambling State guard Shakyla Hill belongs in a league of her own.
With less than a minute remaining on February 2, the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) game against Arkansas-Pine Bluff was all but over when the 5-foot-7 guard made a play that will forever etch her name in the NCAA history books. And it was beautiful.
Despite her team leading by 20 points late in the fourth quarter, Hill wasn't about to take her foot off the gas pedal. So instead of letting a long pass sail over her head, she dropped back like a defensive back, tipped it, and then dove to the ground before throwing the ball to a teammate for a game-clinching steal in the 77-57 victory.
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The play is what has made the senior superstar so great in her collegiate career for the Lady Tigers under head coach Freddie Murray, but it also marked her 10th steal of the game to secure a rare quadruple-double of 21 points, 16 rebounds, 13 assists and 10 steals at the Frederick C. Hobdy Assembly Center in Grambling, Louisiana.
"That was actually crazy because it took a lot of my energy to actually jump and make the kind of catch that I did, and then it took me a bunch of energy to actually like scuffle on the floor and try to get the ball away from her. After that, I didn't have anymore left to give. I couldn't get up and then crowd was going crazy and then I felt a rush of emotion. I felt like the best thing for me to do at that moment was to just lay down and feel all of my emotions then."
— Grambling State senior guard Shakyla Hill
The women's basketball game was basically over and there was Hill still giving it her all. That's what big-time players do, and it helped her become the first player in NCAA history to register two quadruple-doubles in their careers. To put it into perspective, only one men's NCAA Division I history has ever accomplished the feat. She's done it twice in 13 months to make basketball history.
Hill, a Little Rock, Arkansas native, registered her first official quadruple-double last year against Alabama State on Jan. 3, 2018. The only other women's Division I players to have stuffed the stat sheet like that — since steals became an official NCAA stat during the 1987-88 season — was Veronica Pettry of Loyola Chicago in 1989, Ramona Jones of Lamar against Central Florida in 1991, Soja Tate of Arkansas State against Mississippi Valley State in 1993.
Lester Hudson of Tennessee-Martin is the only men's player to post a quadruple-double with 25 points, 12 rebounds, 10 assists, and 10 steals against Central Baptist College in 2007.
Only time will tell what's in store next for Grambling State's Shakyla Hill, but her crazy stat line from Saturday night is going into the history books forever.
