Welcome back to the Monday Tennis Briefing, where The Athletic will explain the stories behind the stories from the past week on court.

This week, the Miami Open crowned its champions, with Aryna Sabalenka and Jakub Menšík taking the singles titles. Elsewhere, men’s world No. 1 Jannik Sinner had a great hard-court swing while playing just one tournament, the sun did not shine on home players and Mirra Andreeva used doubles to keep her feet on the ground.

If you’d like to follow our fantastic tennis coverage, click here.

How did Sinner’s absence leave him untroubled as world No. 1?

Adding up the ranking points earned by men’s players at this year’s Australian Open, BNP Paribas Open and Miami Open, the highest tally belongs to someone who participated in only one of those events. The big ATP winner from the first Grand Slam of 2025 and then the post-Melbourne ‘Sunshine Double’ in California and Florida is Sinner, who played neither of the latter two tournaments because of his three-month anti-doping ban.

While the back-to-back Australian Open champion was getting some training reps in before his return to the tour in May, his rivals all failed to capitalize on his absence. It’s almost guaranteed now that Sinner will still be No. 1 when he begins his comeback in five weeks on home clay at the Italian Open in Rome.

The nominal world No. 2 Alexander Zverev was also last seen playing proper tennis in Melbourne — the difference between him and Sinner is that he has played in five events since. But the German has looked like a shadow of himself from the moment Sinner beat him in that Australian Open final, and after losing his first match in Indian Wells, he went out to Arthur Fils in the Miami Open round of 16, despite having been a break up in the final set.

Sinner’s main rival, Carlos Alcaraz, was beaten in his first match in Miami. In Indian Wells, he had failed to recover from a first-set horror show in the semifinals, losing to eventual champion Jack Draper. Alcaraz occasionally looked lost during both matches — as he did when losing in the Australian Open quarterfinals to an injured Novak Djokovic.

Djokovic looked refreshed in Miami after his own early exit in Indian Wells, but didn’t have to beat a top-14 player to get to the final. When he got there, he lost precisely the kind of match he’s made a career of winning. His opponent in that final, Menšík, was superb in a 7-6(4), 7-6(4) win, but neutralizing big servers and winning tiebreaks have long been two of Djokovic’s calling cards.

Menšík, 19, had a breakthrough tournament, as did Draper in Indian Wells, but among Sinner’s established rivals, it’s generally been a pretty challenging month.

Sometimes in sport, players’ most helpful results come when they are not even present.

March 2025 undoubtedly strengthened Sinner’s position at the pinnacle of men’s tennis, without him playing a single point.

Charlie Eccleshare

How is Andreeva using doubles to keep her grounded?

It was a sunshine double of sorts for Andreeva too, who followed up her Indian Wells singles title by winning the Miami Open doubles, with her close friend and compatriot Diana Shnaider.

Andreeva, the 17-year-old Russian, is unusual among the world’s top 10 in continuing to play regular doubles, and long may it continue — because the benefits go beyond just her tennis.

She and 20-year-old Shnaider play together with the kind of levity that is generally non-existent in the one-on-one combat of singles, and can only be beneficial to two youngsters getting to grips with the grind of professional tennis. The timeline of the WTA Tour is littered with prodigies burning out because of the sport’s suffocating pressure.

The pair’s sense of humour came in handy Sunday, during the lengthy rain delay that interrupted their 6-3, 6-7(5), 10-2 final win over Spain’s Cristina Bucsa and Miyu Kato of Japan.

It is Andreeva and Shnaider’s second title as partners, having first joined forces when they laughed their way to Olympic silver medals in August. Since then, both have spoken about how much they enjoy playing together and the way it benefits them.

“When we play doubles, we both don’t like when it’s very tense,” Andreeva said in an interview at Melbourne Park in January. “So, for example, when the score is 5-4 and we have to serve for the match, we’re both at the same time trying to say some jokes or just chill a bit. 

“We always make fun of ourselves, so if she hits an amazing shot. I’m like, ‘Have you seen that? Are you Roger Federer? I mean, come on, stop it.’ And then after that, I feel like she’s fired up and she makes even better shots. And when I play a good shot, she’s always like, ‘My God, what are you doing? I mean, if you play like this, we’re going to win a slam.’”

Shnaider, who is having a tricky singles season after a breakthrough 2024, also feels the benefits and said in an interview in New York before last year’s U.S. Open: “I need some jokes on court. I need some smiles. I need to have some talks with a partner enjoying doubles. Because for me, I’m just getting released from the stress and some tightness.

“And I knew that she’s a very open person. She’s very emotional. She loves to talk, loves jokes and loves smiling. So I was like, ‘This is the right fit’.”

Before their doubles win in Miami, Andreeva had endured a stressful singles defeat to Amanda Anisimova in the third round, while Shnaider lost to Anna Blinkova in the second.

They could have both packed up and left Miami then for some rest or practice. Instead, both found something more valuable on the doubles court.

Charlie Eccleshare

Not the ‘Sunshine Double’ the American men were hoping for

A couple of months ago, this looked like it could be a pretty special Indian Wells and Miami swing for American men.

With world No. 1 Sinner sidelined and the sport’s best-ever Djokovic something of a question mark and about to turn 38, it seemed like there could be an opening for a group of rivals who are often at their best on home soil. The top Americans are hard-court players who aim to make hay during the North American hard-court swings — especially this one, which precedes a three-month trip to Europe and its organic surfaces.

Ben Shelton was coming off a run to the Australian Open semifinals. Taylor Fritz wasn’t far removed from being a finalist at last year’s U.S. Open, being runner-up at November’s ATP Tour Finals and winning the United Cup with his country in January. Tommy Paul was a top-10 player. Frances Tiafoe always gets fired up for the home fans.

When it was over, Fritz, still battling a right abdominal injury, had the best showing across the two events, falling to Menšík in the Miami semifinals in a third-set tiebreak. He managed to lose while not having his serve broken all night. A couple of bad decisions in the first and third-set tiebreaks kept him out of the final.

Shelton fell in the quarters of Indian Wells to eventual champion Draper. Not bad, and he seemed to have found his groove on the gritty, high-kicking hard courts in California. But then, in Miami, he lost his opening match to a wild card, Coleman Wong of Hong Kong.

Paul disappeared during his round of 16 match in Indian Wells against Daniil Medvedev. In Miami, he lost his second match to Francisco Cerundolo. He’s 7-4 since entering the top 10. Tiafoe? He went 2-2 in the Sunshine Double, with losses to Fils and Yosuke Watanuki.

And on it went.

Learner Tien didn’t win a match. Alex Michelsen won just one.

Not good weather for the home players in March.

Matt Futterman

Danielle Collins gets a win

Danielle Collins couldn’t retain her title in Miami, but ended up coming away with a different kind of trophy.

Collins came upon a dog that had been hit by a car during her time in the city. She pulled over, took the animal to a local veterinary hospital and saw to it that it got the care it needed, through surgery and five days on oxygen.

With the pup pulling through, Collins announced that she had adopted it and named it “Crash.”

“His breathing is back to normal, his wounds are healing, and he is definitely enjoying all the love he is receiving,” Collins shared on Instagram, showing the newest addition to her family snuggling with her in bed. Crash joins Quincy, who has accompanied Collins on the tour for some time now.

“He is curious, affectionate, and grateful for a second chance at life. It was so incredibly painful to witness a dog in so much pain after being hit by a car, and left in the middle of the road with so many people driving by his curled-up body. I’m just grateful I was able to be there and get him the care he needed.”

Perhaps not another trophy. But maybe something better. And a good thing for Crash that Collins decided not to retire at the start of this season.

Now she has another title to defend this week in Charleston, S.C., where she’ll be looking to stay inside the world top 32 and get a seeding for the next Grand Slam in Paris next month.

Matt Futterman

Recommended reading:

🏆 The winners of the week

🎾 ATP: 

🏆 Menšík def. Djokovic (4) 7-6(4), 7-6(4) to win the Miami Open (1,000) in Miami. It is his first ATP 1,000 title.

🎾 WTA:

🏆 Sabalenka (1) def. Pegula (4) 7-5, 6-2 to win the Miami Open (1,000) in Miami. It is the Belarusian’s 19th WTA Tour title.

📈📉 On the rise / Down the line

📈 Eala moves up 65 places from No. 140 to a career high of No. 75 after her run to the Miami Open semifinals.
📈 Menšík ascends 30 spots from No. 54 to No. 24 after winning the Miami Open.
📈 Tereza Valentová moves up 41 places from No. 211 to a career high of No. 170 after winning the ITF W75 event in Murska Sobota, Slovenia.

📉 Medvedev falls three places from No. 8 to No. 11, leaving the ATP top 10 for the first time since 2019.
📉 Caroline Garcia drops 27 places from No. 74 to No. 101, leaving the WTA top 100 for the first time since 2013.
📉 Thiago Seyboth Wild tumbles 15 spots from No. 96 to No. 111, leaving the ATP top 100.

📅 Coming up

🎾 ATP 

📍Houston: U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championship (250) featuring Paul, Tiafoe, Michelsen, Tien.
📍Marrakech, Morroco: Grand Prix Hassan II (250) featuring Tallon Griekspoor, Lorenzo Sonego, Otto Virtanen, Pavel Kotov.
📍Bucharest, Romania: Tiriac Open (250) featuring Sebastian Baez, Gabriel Diallo, Botic van de Zandschulp, Nishesh Basavareddy.

📺 UK: Sky Sports; U.S.: Tennis Channel 💻 Tennis TV

🎾 WTA

📍Charleston, S.C.: Charleston Open (500) featuring Pegula, Madison Keys, Zheng Qinwen, Belinda Bencic.
📍Bogotá, Colombia: Copa Colsanitas Zurich (250) featuring Marie Bouzkova, Camila Osorio, Iva Jovic, Alycia Parks.

📺 UK: Sky Sports; U.S.: Tennis Channel

Tell us what you noticed this week in the comments below as the men’s and women’s tours continue.

(Top photo: Patrick Hamilton / AFP via Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)

SAN FRANCISCO — In summer 2022, the new Florida men’s basketball staff had zero wins, an auspicious but limited track record and one guarantee: Thomas Haugh, the lanky three-star recruit in the practice gym, was not leaving Gainesville without plans to come back. He was possibly the only human ever to be both a native of New Oxford, Pa., and a die-hard Florida fan. A 6-foot-9 devotee of Tim Tebow Mania. If anyone was going to run to the front of the line, it was him.

“They had to do a lot wrong for Tommy not to show up and be a Gator the next day,” Ryan Haugh, Thomas’ father, said Saturday on the Chase Center floor. “That was his lifelong dream. He bled orange and blue while the rest of Pennsylvania was bleeding blue and white.”

These are the serendipities that college basketball teams ride into April without knowing they’re on that ride until they get there. First, there is a very tall kid from a town of about 2,000 people who plays quarterback. Then that kid falls for the stylings of a Heisman Trophy winner. Then that kid gets too tall to be a quarterback anymore, grows yet another couple of inches and plays basketball well enough to catch the eye of an assistant coach at Richmond.

Thomas Haugh was a BUCKET for the @GatorsMBK tonight 😤

🔥 20 PTS | 11 REB | 4 3PT

A much-needed spark off the bench to help Florida advance to the #MFinalFour in San Antonio 📈#MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/RVQ3InMnXZ

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— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) March 30, 2025

Then that assistant coach becomes an assistant coach at Florida and takes another look. The player can’t say yes quickly enough. And in less than three years, there is Thomas Haugh on Saturday evening, turning to the crowd with a smile on his face and his arms spread wide, celebrating the moment that Florida clinched its first trip to the Final Four in more than a decade. A moment that wouldn’t have happened without him. A moment that is the residue of a lot of other ones that might not have happened at all but did.

So Thomas Haugh scores 20 points, grabs 11 rebounds and hits two 3-pointers in the final three minutes to supercharge a No. 1 seed’s comeback from oblivion. Florida beats Texas Tech 84-79, securing the first spot in San Antonio next week. As fate would have it. “I feel like I’m dreaming,” Haugh said, with a souvenir championship baseball cap pulled low over his brow. “I was watching the round of 64 in the eighth grade, sneaking my phone into science class. Now, to say I’m playing in the Final Four is wild. It’s wild.”

And it’s, of course, not entirely providence.

Florida’s staff has built this monster of a roster by relying on its instincts and calculations in player evaluations, entirely unconcerned if they don’t align with whatever the consensus is. It’s a belief in seeing things a little differently that traces back to operating as part of an Ivy League operation years and years ago. It’s comfort with risky convictions. And it’s the process that gets you a hero of an Elite Eight game.

Haugh was, in the words of Florida assistant coach Kevin Hovde, “an insane late bloomer.” Six feet 7 going into his senior year of high school, maybe not as comprehensively serious about basketball as Division I coaches would prefer until a couple of years before that. He was on the radar when Hovde worked at Richmond. He was not, however, a must-sign no-brainer.

But Haugh did bloom, even if he needed a prep school stopover to do so. And once Hovde joined Todd Golden’s new coaching staff at Florida, the pair doubled back. Their re-evaluation recommended Haugh as a player worth adding, even if the particulars of the picture remained fuzzy. “He has a very high floor in his game,” Hovde said amid Florida’s celebration Saturday. “I thought he could defend at this level, and he has a great feel. He’s easy to play with. So I thought no matter what, he’s going to be able to play a role. But he’s surpassed our expectations.”

They imagined a steep trajectory. They got a player who is nimbly climbing a sheer cliff face.

Haugh’s per-40-minute rebounding is basically static from his first season to this one. But he’s almost incomprehensibly gone from a 45.7 percent free-throw shooter as a freshman to 80.4 percent as a sophomore. He’s better than doubled his assist rate (6.9 percent to 14.1), becoming what Golden calls a “pressure release” for the Gators guards. His 3-point shooting jumped from 25.5 percent to 33 percent, and through 37 games, he led one of the deepest and most talented teams in the nation with .225 Win Shares per 40 minutes.

Also, he comes off the bench. For all but seven of the games he’s played in two years. “He’s a winning player,” Golden said. “He just finds ways to impact the game and to help the team. One of, if not the most unselfish guys out there, just being comfortable coming off the bench when he could be starting for pretty much any team in America.”

Haugh is, essentially, the avatar for Florida’s plan and the success it’s engendering. The Gators have welcomed players other power-conference programs might not take. Though the idea was to create depth that can overwhelm teams, this also requires players willing to be depth components. The Gators, meanwhile, have been unflappable — their longest losing streak this year is one game — because they have so many alternatives for whomever might not have it on a given night.

So here was Haugh, a 9.5 points per game scorer once again content in a reserve role in the Elite Eight. Then he logged 30 minutes — third most of any Florida player against Texas Tech — and stepped into a 3-pointer to make it a six-point game with 2:50 to play. And another to make it a one-possession contest less than 30 seconds later. Walter Clayton Jr. might have taken it from there, but there was nowhere to take it without Haugh’s confidently seizing those two moments.

“I just got the ball and I was like, probably need a 3-pointer here, so just throw one up and see if it goes in,” Haugh said with a laugh. “No, my teammates found me, and I made the shots. Which, thank God, I did.”

His parents still might not quite grasp why a football player from Gainesville, Fla., caught hold with a kid from a pin dot in Pennsylvania — “I questioned every day why there was orange and blue in our house,” said Ryan Haugh, a former football player at Division II Shippensburg University — but they rolled with it. Jennifer Haugh even put Tim Tebow’s book in front of her son. And at any rate, there were worse idols to have.

“His drive, his tenacity, just never quit,” Ryan Haugh said. “That sunk in a little bit. As you saw today.”

And that brought everyone to Florida, and that brought Florida to a Final Four. Amid the postgame hubbub, Thomas Haugh wondered aloud about meeting Tebow someday. This almost surely will happen after what transpired Saturday at the Chase Center. The happy coincidences in Thomas Haugh’s story are being steadily replaced by sure things.

“Obviously,” Golden said of the selfless sophomore who helped will the Gators to San Antonio, “he’s going to start for us next year.”

(Photo: Kyle Terada / Imagn Images)

Making it to the WNBA or setting incredible NCAA records never crossed Shakyla Hill’s mind when she arrived at Grambling State in 2015.

She had other aspirations. She wanted to be a lawyer.

Recording a quadruple-double in a game was never part of the plan. Getting two in a career wasn’t even a thought.

But it happened for the student-athlete who preferred law over layups.

“I probably said my first two years a hundred times, I’m playing basketball to pay for school. I’m not in school to play basketball,” Hill told The Athletic. “But then the (first) quadruple-double happened, and it kind of just changed the trajectory of the things that I was supposed to do because it allowed me other opportunities to continue playing.”

As March Madness continues, she is paying attention to the tournament brackets on both the women’s and men’s sides. Basketball always will be of value to her life, but she’s now 28 and works in compliance. Hill plans to start law school in August.

She just happened to achieve phenomenal feats while playing collegiately — feats that aren’t expected to be duplicated any time soon.

The 5-foot-7 guard finished her career at Grambling as the only Division I player with two quadruple-doubles. Only five Division I NCAA players in the men’s and women’s game have ever achieved that stat once.

The first one was enough to catch the attention of a national audience — one that included NBA All-Stars. It was during Hill’s junior season, when she had 15 points, 10 assists, 10 rebounds and 10 steals in Grambling’s 93-71 victory over Alabama State on Jan. 3, 2018.

The effort drew praise from LeBron James, Chris Paul and James Harden.

Crazy!!! Not every day you see a quadruple-double! 👌🏾 https://t.co/ScVxD1XUdD

— Chris Paul (@CP3) January 4, 2018

“When they touched on it, I think that’s when I realized this is way bigger than I ever imagined,” Hill said. “Then it just got uncontrollable. I think the next day, that night, I had to turn off my phone because it was going crazy.”

Isayra Diaz was an assistant coach with Grambling at the time. She said when James spoke about it during a media session, that really got Hill excited.

“He commented on it saying how cool it was and all that, that no matter what level you’re on, it’s hard to do in general,” Diaz said. “For her to do it was pretty cool. I think we were on the bus for a road trip, and we showed her the (James) video. She started crying because he’s one of her favorite players of all time.

“When he is able to comment about that … it was cool.”

After notching just the 4th quadruple-double in women’s college basketball history (15p, 10r, 10a, 10s), Grambling State’s Shakyla Hill said she wanted to hear LeBron James’ reaction to her feat. Well, here it is: pic.twitter.com/IfWjzRcbJ8

— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) January 6, 2018

That game helped change Hill’s life … and then she did it again 13 months later.

On Feb. 2, 2019, Hill had 21 points, 13 rebounds, 13 assists and 10 steals in a 77-57 defeat of Arkansas-Pine Bluff. It was a special performance for her, as she is from Little Rock, Ark. Although the game was played in Louisiana, Hill, then a senior, was excited to play well against a team located 45 miles from her hometown.

That second quadruple-double, though unexpected, came with fewer surprises. After recording the first one, she was accustomed to the attention.

“I adjusted well. I feel like, definitely, those last two years kind of molded me into the person that I am now,” Hill said. “Everybody’s watching, and everything you did at that point in time was under a microscope. I think it kind of prepared me for the future and everything else.”

Hill credits her coaches for not allowing the moments to get too big. She was revered at Grambling, an HBCU best known athletically for legendary football coach Eddie Robinson and as the alma mater of Super Bowl XXII MVP Doug Williams and Pro Football Hall of Fame defender Willie Brown, among others.

After January 2018, media requests seemed nonstop for Hill. Fans and alumni wanted time and pictures — at home and on the road. Her social media following grew exponentially, and she became a celebrity in and outside of Grambling, La., with photos of her appearing in local stores and in the school café area.

Hill joked about having to be photo-ready at all times. Normally, she was fine with simply wearing a headband that never matched her shirt. But quadruple-doubles are life-changing beyond the court.

The 2017-18 season ended with the Tigers winning the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) tournament as a No. 3 seed and making the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 19 years. Grambling lost to Baylor in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

But the Tigers made waves with a guard who once had basketball as a secondary option.

“It just came natural to her,” former Grambling coach Freddie Murray said.

Hill was recruited to play at Grambling by David Pierre Jr., who now is an assistant coach at the University of Texas-Arlington. Hill credits her first Grambling coach, Nadine Domond, for pushing her on the court by using a stern approach when she arrived on campus. Domond now is the coach at Division II Virginia State.

Pierre was recruiting another player when he saw Hill on film. She wasn’t as big on playing AAU basketball during the offseason as other recruits. Pierre said Hill was more into spending time with her family than competing on the summer circuit, which might have contributed to larger schools missing out on signing her.

“Hill was one who could have played anywhere,” Pierre said.

The Grambling coaching staff knew Hill was talented coming out of high school. She was a sophomore when Hall High won the Arkansas Class 6A state championship. The coaches considered her a game changer in high school, but they wanted to see her do more with that talent in college.

“We stayed on her about getting in the gym, putting in extra time,” Murray said. “She’d come, then she’d leave, and then come back. and then she’d leave. Initially, I think she was just kind of getting caught up in college life and enjoying college. I think it didn’t really click with her until going into junior year, when she really, really started putting the time in.”

That’s when the Breakfast Club became the norm. The Breakfast Club was a group of players who met with Diaz for workouts at 4:30 a.m., 90 minutes before practice. That was in addition to workouts later in the day. That group helped Hill mature as a serious college athlete.

“It took some time, but when she started coming in the gym with me and coach Pierre, it showed improvement in her game,” Diaz said. “I think once she started realizing, ‘I’m consistent with it, and now I’m reaping what I sow,’ it just went on from there. Then she just kind of got addicted to doing actual workouts and things of that nature.

“She started falling in love with the whole Breakfast Club.”

Hill became more of a team leader. She remained someone her teammates could rely on, both on and off the court.

“As stern as we were with her, pushing her, challenging her, she was as stern on her teammates,” Pierre said. “Sometimes it’s hard being the best player and being liked. She was our best player, but they liked her and liked playing with her.”

Hill finished her college career as a first-team All-SWAC performer her last three seasons. She was the SWAC Defensive Player of the Year as a senior. And, of course, there were the two quadruple-doubles.

No longer was she playing only to pay for school.

Murray said Hill was projected as a third-round pick in the 2019 WNBA Draft after averaging 18.9 points, 7.6 rebounds, 6.3 assists and 4.6 steals during her senior year. But Hill went undrafted. Murray said colleagues with WNBA ties liked Hill’s athleticism, but they wanted to see more from her that translated to the pro game, like playing in the pick-and-roll with post players. The 14-player Grambling roster during the 2018-19 season had only one player taller than 6-foot-1, so guards like Hill were forced to play bigger than they were in most games.

When Hill was going through the draft process, no HBCU players had been drafted since 2002, when Andrea Gardner (Howard, second round), Amba Kongolo (North Carolina Central, fourth round) and Jacklyn Winfield (Southern, fourth round) were selected. It wasn’t until Ameshya Williams-Holliday (Jackson State, third round) in 2022 that a player from an HBCU was drafted.

Grambling has never had a player drafted to the WNBA, and Pierre believes Hill could have been based on how she fared against opponents from bigger schools. He also believes Hill would have been an even bigger sensation had she played in today’s name, image and likeness era.

“She just was in the wrong era,” Pierre said.

After the draft, Hill chose to play professionally overseas. She headed to Serbia to compete with ZKK Kraljevo of the First Women’s League of Serbia (ZLS).

And guess who recorded another quadruple-double?

On Jan 26, 2020, a month after her 24th birthday, Hill had 15 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists and 10 steals in an 86-62 win against ZKK Partizan 1953.

“They made it a huge deal,” Hill said. “They threw me a huge party. I was on the news. It was a big deal there because (a quadruple-double) had never happened in that league.”

Covered two of these when @shakylaa_ was at @GSU_TIGERS and now she added to her impressive resume with a professional quadruple-double #womensbasketball🏀 #goat pic.twitter.com/OQOGnUfanv

— 𝘽𝙧𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙃𝙤𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙙 (@brianhoward33) January 25, 2020

Her team went on to win the Serbian Cup. The team also played in the WABA (Women’s Adriatic Basketball Association) League and was 17-1 when Serbia shut down basketball because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hill averaged 13.3 points, 8.1 rebounds, 6.3 assists and 5.7 steals in the ZLS. She averaged 14.3 points, 6.4 rebounds, 6.1 assists and 4.2 steals in the WABA League and was the Defensive Player of the Year. She said she wanted her play that year to send a bigger message than delivering quality stats.

“How people talk about the SWAC and HBCU sports, they kind of downplay it,” Hill said. “That was kind of like vindication for myself, and also like, ‘OK, I am really a hard worker.’ Outside of the skills it takes to score, you definitely have to have a lot of grit and a lot of grind to get a quadruple-double because it’s not only time-consuming but energy-consuming.”

Hill wanted to give the WNBA a try in 2020, but she said a training camp contract with the Indiana Fever didn’t pan out because of the pandemic. She then played for Bashkimi Prizren of the Kosovo Women’s Basketball Superleague and won the Kosovo Cup in 2022.

Murray and Diaz said they weren’t surprised Hill had success in Europe. Diaz said she wouldn’t mind watching Hill give pro basketball another shot. Hill, however, is content with her current life. She said she is “completely done” with playing and also doesn’t have interest in coaching.

When she graduated from Grambling, Hill ranked third on the all-time scoring list with 2,052 points. She also ranked second all time in rebounds as a guard with 925.

Diaz said with the way Hill spoke during film sessions, it’s no surprise she’s pursuing law. Hill said she’s considering Southern, Howard and Texas Southern for law school. She also wouldn’t mind returning to her home state of Arkansas to practice.

“I can see her as a lawyer because she likes to debate and she likes to talk,” Pierre said. “She’s passionate. She lights up a room. She has a big personality that’s contagious.”

Hill is ready to take that passion to law school. She said she is leaning toward studying corporate law, but she is keeping her options open. Being a district attorney was a goal at one time.

The only thing that delayed that plan was basketball. And those quadruple-doubles.

(Photo: Ken Murray / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)