On Saturday afternoon, junior Hillary Dunn became only the fourth women's basketball player in Tufts history to crack the century mark in assists in a season. With her third assist of the day against Bowdoin in the Jumbos 50-48 loss, Dunn joined Re Treadup (1989-90), Patty McDermott (1992-93) and Tufts' single season assist record holder Lisa Raffin, who recorded 121 assists during the 1980-81 season.
"I had no idea that I was near a hundred or near any sort of milestone until my father handed me the program on Saturday," Dunn said.
In 18 games on the season Dunn has averaged 5.6 assists per game, up from last season's average of 3.2 assists per game which she compiled over 21 games including 7 starts. Last year she finished second on the team in assists per game and total assists (68) behind Shira Fishman.
If Dunn maintains her current pace of 5.6 assists per game over the team's final four games, she will shatter the single season assist mark and finish with 123. Incidentally, if she were to break Raffin's single season record she would be replacing a fellow graduate of Medfield High School in the Tufts record books. Raffin actually set her 21-year-old single season mark in 1981, the year Dunn was born. As of today, Dunn ranks seventh all-time in career assists at Tufts with 209.
If Dunn maintains the 5.6 assists per game average for the remainder of her collegiate career assuming she plays the remaining four games this season and a full 23 game schedule next year (she missed one game this season) she will just manage to eclipse Raffin's career mark of 355. Currently, she is on pace to finish her career with approximately 359 assists.
"That will be pretty exciting," Dunn said about potentially breaking two school records. "In high school I had a lot of these similar records so it's kind of cool to do it again in college."
However, with all these personal milestones in sight, Dunn the consummate pass first point guard is still thinking about her team.
"Right now I would rather win the next four games than break the season assist record," she said. "If in the process of trying to win the four games, I break the record, that will be nice. But I just want to do whatever I have to do to help my team win."
