By The Beacon Staff

The reason why [quadruple-double] is such a hard thing to accomplish

is because it requires a player to be completely dominant on both ends

of the court without being too selfish—so he can get the assists—

without fouling out trying to block every shot or grab every rebound. A

lot of guys can get the points, rebounds and assists, but it’s the

defensive stuff that messes everybody up. You have to love defense to

get a quadruple-double. There’s no way around it.

 ~ Nate Thurmond

With the YSCC Elite 8 post-season tournament coming to SMCC this

Thursday, the Beacon Sports staff thought it a good idea to have some

fun with basketball trivia. A total of 16 teams, 8 women and 8 men, will

battle it out in the Hub gym beginning Thursday afternoon and

commencing Sunday afternoon when the surviving 2 teams from the

women’s and men’s brackets play for the championship. One would

think that the spirit of Dr. James Naismith should be happier.

The above means that the possibilities for someone gathering

the ever-elusive quadruple-double happening in the Hub has somewhat

of a better chance of happening, well that’s astronomically speaking.

Let’s put the quadruple-double in perspective. A

quadruple-double is when one player records double digit numbers in 4

of the following five categories: points, rebounds, assists, steals, and

blocked shots, all in 1 game.

The first professional basketball league was known as BAA and

came into existence on June 6th, 1946, when it was known as the

Basketball Association of America. On August 3rd, 1949 the league

renamed itself the National Basketball League after absorbing the BAA.

After an hour or so of web search, this sports writer estimated that

somewhere in the neighborhood of 114,839 regular season games

have been played in the NBA and the fore- mentioned BAA.

The number of quadruple-doubles recorded in those 114,839

games – 4. That’s right 4. Nate Thurmond, who is quoted above, was

the first to record a quadruple-double as he scored 22pts, grabbed 14

rebounds, racked up 13 assists and blocked 12 shots in 45 minutes of

play, an overtime game, against the Atlanta Hawks on October 18,

1974.

Twelve years later, on February 18th, 1986 San Antonio guard

Alvin Robertson achieved what Thurmond did when he scored 20pts,

snagged 11 boards, dished out 10 assists, and stole the ball 10 times

in 36 minutes of play against the Phoenix Suns.

Not wanting to wait 12 years, the Huston Rocket’s Hakeem

Olajuwon found the bottom of the net for 18pts, collected 16 rebounds,

dished out 10 assists and swatted the ball away 11 times in 40 minutes

of play against the Milwaukee Bucks, on March 29, 1990.

Three years, 10mths, 2wks and 5dys later Naval Academy alum,

David Robinson aka, The Admiral joined the elite group of players when

he record his quadruple-double with a stat line that read 34pts, 10

boards, 10 assists and 10 blocked shots in 43 minutes of play against

the Detroit Pistons.

Considering the great guards that have graced the court in NBA

games, guards like Magic Johnson, Walt Frazier, Oscar Robertson, Isiah

Thomas, Michael Jordan and Bob Cousy, none of them have recorded a

quadruple-double, only Alvin Robertson.

Robertson’s feat seems a bit more special when one realizes the

level of work needed to grab 10 steals, drain 20pts, collect 11 boards

and record 10 assists in 36 minutes of play, the least amount of time

needed to join the quadruple-double club, all with a height of 6’ 3”.

Regardless of what one may think Alvin proved that day that

basketball is a guard’s game.