All eyes were on Grambling State’s junior guard Shakyla Hill as she made headlines everywhere and brought herself fame when her star performance last Wednesday made history. On this particular night, Hill became the fourth NCAA women’s basketball player to nail a quadruple-double. (A just a blessing to see all the hard work.”
Coach Murray’s expectations for Hill after a game like that is as follows: “To continue to keep working, not get the big head stay humble, continue to work on her game, and continue to make her team better. Shakyla is not a stat person. She’s all about the team, and all about the team’s success. Just to continue to challenge her to be the best she can be night in and night out.”
After the game ended, Shakyla was in for the shock of her life the following morning. She woke up to messages from her friends with screenshots of her being plastered all over the media.
The Little Rock, Arkansas native was interviewed via Skype which aired on The Six, a podcast on ESPN host- ed by Jemele Hill and Michael Smith. “That made me really excited to see myself on ESPN because I’ve probably never been on TV before then. I knew it was something that hadn’t been done in a long time and it wasn’t done often but I didn’t know it was going to be as big as everyone made it out to be.”
Just to name a few, Hill was also recognized on BET, Sports Illustrated, HBCU Game Day, ESPN, Sports Center, BOXTOROW, USA Today and even by The Shade Room, an account on Instagram that recognizes news from an array of topics- news, politics, and entertainment just to name a few.
Hill was also mentioned on Twitter by NBA players James Harden and Chris Paul. Her favorite moment of the entire experience was receiv- ing recognition from Lebron James himself. “The Lebron James shout out has to be my favorite moment by far and I feel like once Lebron says something about you, you’ve made it she said" quadruple-double is a performance in which a player accumulates a dou-ble-digit number total in four statistical categories—points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocked shots in a game.)
Hill fnished the gamewith 15 points, 10 rebounds, 10 steals, 10 assists, and a 93- 71 win against Alabama State in the Fredrick C. Hobdy Assembly Center. It wasn’t until the last three minutes of the game when someone at the scoring table informed Shakyla that she was two assists away from getting a quadruple-double.
In the 2016-2017 season,Hill averaged 15 points, 7.8 rebounds and 34.7 min- utes per game. She earned First-Team All-SWAC and BOXTOROW First-Team All-American honors.Shakyla was named Preseason SWAC Player of the Year, and she currentlyranks rst on the team inscoring, averaging 13.2 pointsas well as eld goal attempts, eld goals made, free throw attempts, free throws made, rebounds (offense and de- fense), rebound average, as-sists and steals. She ranks rstin SWAC in assists, secondnationally ( first in SWAC)in steals, third nationally in triple doubles and secondnationally ( rst in SWAC) insteals, third nationally in triple-doubles (one) and secondnationally ( first in SWAC) insteals per game.
Just when you think she earned enough titles, Hill was recently named SWAC Player of the Week and BOX- TOROW National Player of the Week.
Off the court, Hill is a psy- chology major with aspirations to play professional basketball. “I always wanted to go to an HBCU and I’ve always wanted to play for a team that made me feel like I’m in a family be- cause now I have a little sister, but I always had no sisters. This is the school that made me feel at home. And anyone
In the final seconds of the game, Hill found Monisha Neal to splash the three-pointer that gave Hill her last needed assists. “I was really excited,” she said. “There’s a video of Monisha hitting her last shot. I jus dropped to the floor, I was very excited.”
Lady Tiger head coach Freddie Murray was not aware of Hill’s quadruple-double until his post- game interview. “I was excited about it,” said Murray. “When they told me what she had done I was just happy for her. The young lady works so hard day in and day out it’
And anyone at Grambling knows the Gmakes you feel at home,” Hill said. At the end of the day she’s willing to live through whatever the results are. Her goals are simple- she just wants the team to be successful.” On Saturday, Shakyla will be honored for reaching a 1,000 career points (a feat that occurred on Dec. 10 against the University of Al- abama) between the women’s and men’s basketball games versus Prairie View A&M University. Tipoff in the Fredrick C. Hobdy Assembly Center is scheduled for 3 p.m.