Finally, women’s basketball freshman guard Ta’Kenya Nixon got over the hump of double-doubles.

Nixon has had three double-doubles this season. Her first came in her third career collegiate game against Northern Colorado.

Then, Nixon had a 13-game drought without a double-double until she played Eastern Kentucky Jan. 14 and tallied one of the most unimaginable stat lines for a point guard.

Is it just m,e or is anybody else surprised that the 5-foot-8 Nixon could grab 17 boards and add 16 points? It was that game when I knew a triple-double was in Nixon’s future. Then came Southern Illinois-Edwardsville where she dropped 19 on the Cougars, while snatching 11 boards.

Up to that point, Miss Nixon, you had been considered a phenomenon in the Eastern basketball world and yet you were not quite done.

Against Morehead State on Thursday you played a full 40 minutes and got what my psyche saw was coming for you – 17 points, 10 assists and 11 rebounds. As a freshman, you have become the first Panther on the women’s team to notch a triple-double since 2004, when Megan Casad did it with 11s painted across the board.

However, the way Casad scored was drastically different from how Nixon did because Casad completed the feat with nearly all three-pointers, for nine of her 11 points.

Nixon on the other hand, was 0-of-3 from beyond the arc but still managed to put up 17 on the Eagles.

You see, Nixon could have tallied a triple-double in the pre-three-point line era of basketball, prior to 1984 when the arc was introduced.

How many people these days can say that they have gotten a triple-double without making a three? I am thinking of a low number.

Also, Nixon followed up her triple-double two nights later with 18 points, seven assists and six rebounds. Casad had four points, six assists and five rebounds in the game that followed her trio.

This is not to say the two performances were better or worse than the each other. The fact both Nixon and Casad were even able to accomplish such a task calls for praise alone.

It is saying volumes that Nixon was able to do it in her first year as a Division I athlete when a big star like Kobe Bryant bypassed college and had to wait four and a half years to get one of his own.

The University of Connecticut women’s basketball team is currently on a 65-game win streak but has anybody on their roster notched a triple-double in that span? No.

Casad did it in 2004, meaning no active Panther on Nixon’s team has accomplished what she has. That puts her in elite company. If ending the triple-double drought was not enough, Nixon broke Casad’s freshman assists record in Saturday’s game, raising it by six, to 130 and counting.

I wonder what other feats she will accomplish.

Alex McNamee can be reached at 581-7944 or admcnamee@eiu.edu.