Just a handful of players have turned in triple-doubles in Division I women’s college basketball this season. Heading into this year, no one had managed the feat at Northern Illinois since 1995.
But on Nov. 26, Huskies senior and former Indian Creek star Ally Lehman went for 19 points, 10 rebounds and a career-high 11 assists against Illinois State.
"To be honest, I really didn’t think much of it," Lehman shrugged.
It was such an insignificant accomplishment in Lehman’s mind that she did it again less than a week later.
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In Friday’s 81-51 win at Bradley, she had 12 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists — becoming the first player in Division I women’s basketball this season to record two triple-doubles.
Stuffing the stat sheet is nothing new for the 5-foot-10 guard. She came into her senior season as the only player in Northern Illinois history to collect both 600 rebounds and 300 assists in her career, and a week ago at Drake she reached two new milestones — 1,000 points and 750 rebounds.
During her senior year at Indian Creek, Lehman notched a pair of quadruple-doubles (points, rebounds, assists and steals). So far this season, she’s just two points shy of teammate Courtney Woods; otherwise, she’d be leading Northern Illinois in all four of those categories.
"It’s kind of an expectation," she said of putting up big numbers. "It’s what I’m supposed to be doing on the floor, especially as a guard."
The triple-doubles might not have even been Lehman’s biggest moment of the year, though. On Nov. 16, she set a Mid-American Conference scoring record when she racked up 48 points and also tied a career high with 21 rebounds in the Huskies’ 114-104 overtime victory against Milwaukee.
"It was just kind of going with the flow of the game and doing what was necessary," Lehman said, "because Milwaukee was taking away a lot of our options."
Those huge nights have helped Lehman earn MAC Player of the Week honors the past three weeks in a row.
The individual stats are secondary for Lehman, though. More important is the fact that her team is off to a strong start. The Huskies won four of their first five games for the first time since the 1990-91 campaign — well before any of the current players were even born — and sit at 5-2 heading into a big Sunday game at Iowa State.
"I didn’t know that it would start off this well," Lehman admitted, "but I knew we were going to have a strong team because the chemistry is a lot better on and off the court. We’re able to play off of each other and know each other well."
The eye-popping numbers that Lehman has been putting up haven’t hurt the cause, either.
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Ally Lehman’s career statistics at Northern Illinois (2016-17 stats through seven games):
<strong>Year;PPG;RPG;APG</strong>
2013-14;6.6;4.8;2.6
2014-15;9.2;7.3;4.0
2015-16;13.5;11.0;4.5
2016-17;19.0;11.3;7.0
Lehman’s game-by-game statistics this season:
Date;Opponent;Points;Rebounds;Assists
Nov. 11;at Loyola (Ill.);7;7;5
Nov. 16;Milwaukee;48;21;5
Nov. 19;at Western Illinois;15;13;4
Nov. 22;Chicago St.;15;8;9
Nov. 26;Illinois St.;19;10;11
Nov. 30;at Drake;17;9;5
Dec. 2;at Bradley;12;11;10
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