It’s ‘what I pride myself on’: Ty Harris reflects on setting Gamecock assists record
Standing just outside the 3-point line early in the third quarter against Georgia on Sunday, senior point guard Tyasha Harris saw freshman forward Aliyah Boston standing underneath the basket in perfect position.
A soft pass led to an easy layup, and just like that, Harris had tied the South Carolina women’s basketball program record for career assists at 615. A few moments later, she lobbed another one to senior forward Mikiah Herbert-Harrigan in the lane for No. 616, and the 16-year-old record that once belonged to Gamecock great Cristina Ciocan was hers.
“I’m kinda at a loss for words,” Harris said, “because I didn’t come in thinking I was gonna get the record. I don’t know what to say. It’s a great record to get. I always liked passing the ball. That’s what I pride myself on, a little bit too much, I guess you could say, sometimes. It’s great.”
In 126 career games, Harris is averaging 4.9 assists per game, which would rank third in program history as well. And as she alluded to in her remarks, it’s a milestone that coach Dawn Staley might not have minded waiting to celebrate with a player she’s called the “consummate” point guard..
Since the start of the 2017-18 season, Staley and Harris have talked about the point guard becoming more assertive as a scoring option in her own right. It’s a theme they’ve repeated over and over — when Harris hit 1,000 career points earlier this year, Staley joked that she would have preferred Harris hit that mark much earlier.
But finally, after two years of talking about it, Harris seems to be fully embracing her scoring potential this season. She’s averaging a career high in points per game, at 12.4, and her assist tota — while still tops in the SEC — is on pace to be her lowest average since her freshman year.
“I think Ty’s in a really good place now, in a place where she sees how much better we are when she’s aggressive, shooting the ball, attacking the basket, getting her teammates involved,” Staley said. “I think she’s found a happy medium with both, and it’s elevated our team.”
Harris is also shooting more efficiently from the field and from the 3-point line than she ever has before, and during the preseason and early in the year, she actually credited younger teammates like freshman Zia Cooke with encouraging her to call her own number and shoot more.
And so fittingly, Harris’ assists record Sunday only came after she had already scored 11 points, helping spark an early 14-0 run that put No. 1 USC up for good against Georgia.
The next assists milestone for Harris to chase is 673, which would tie her for 10th in SEC history. She needs 56 more helpers with 10 more regular season games and the postseason to go.
Boston’s got range
Harris wasn’t the only Gamecock working on another area of her game Sunday. Boston has feasted in the low post for South Carolina throughout the start of her standout rookie season, but against Georgia she also combined with Harris on several pick and rolls on the perimeter designed to set up longer jumpers that she knocked down at a good rate. That helped fuel a 15-point game for her, highest among all scorers.
“Aliyah has really given our coaching staff comfort in knowing that she can step outside of the paint and shoot it,” Staley said. “We don’t want her to fall in love with it, but certainly at the rate that she was shooting and being efficient, we’re certainly gonna go back at it, keep working it in practice and hopefully we can give her some reprieve from being beat up in the paint all the time.”
