San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Harmon driving UT’s run not a surprise
AUSTIN — Rori Harmon’s greatest move this season was not a shot, a steal or a pass. Her greatest move was scribbled on a piece of paper.
After every game, win or lose, Texas coach Vic Schaefer has each Longhorns player write down two sets of pros and cons — one for themselves as individuals and one for the team as a whole.
“I remember one paper specifically where Rori wrote down, ‘I know it’s all my fault,’ ” Schaefer recalled. “She is listening because when you are the point guard, you have to be accountable for everyone. And I think that she’s come to really embrace that.”
That’s a lot of pressure for a freshman point guard on a top-15 Texas team playing as a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament. But Harmon, the Big 12 Freshman of the Year and Big 12 tournament MVP, is hoping to lead the Longhorns deep into March precisely because of that pressure.
When she was younger, the Houston native spent every March glued to the television watching the men’s and women’s tournaments. She craved the intensity and the responsibility, wondered what it would be like to cradle the ball in her hands with a season hanging in the balance.
So Harmon implored her father, Rodney, to spend afternoons with her shooting hoops in their front yard or at the local YMCA. At Cy Creek in the Houston area, she led the Cougars to three state championship appearances as one half of a backcourt duo with Kyndall Hunter, now also her teammate at Texas.
UT senior guard Joanne AllenTaylor attended high school at Cypress Falls in the Houston area and played against Harmon four years ago. She saw flashes of the player who, over the course of this season, has become vital to the Longhorns’ success.
“Even then I knew she was going to be a tough, tough player,” Allen-Taylor said. “She sets the tone for us. So she gets us going on that end. We follow suit and she plays hard on the ball. It makes us want to play even harder in our matchups. Offensively she has been really, really key right now — high-level scorer in this tournament this past weekend. It’s changed the dynamic of our team. It’s taken pressure off a lot of us because she is bringing up buckets for us. She’s grown in this area just over this past weekend, but her leadership, her voice getting us in huddles, bringing us in telling where we have to be offensively — she’s grown in this aspect of a point guard, really.”
An infusion of energy
Harmon’s energy infects the Longhorns automatically. The word “spark plug” fits her like a glove. The phrase “live ball” takes on a different meaning in her hands.
Unselfishness is a point guard’s trademark characteristic and Harmon embodies it well. Not just in passing the ball, though she averaged 4.75 assists per game this season up to the NCAA Tournament, but in how she takes command of the offense and sacrifices her body defensively. It is just as common to see her elbows on the floor going for a steal as it is to see them squared up to the hoop for a shot.
Harmon models her game after Allen Iverson, aiming to be small but deadly. She can take over a game with scoring when necessary, as she did in the Big 12 tournament while averaging 22 points, 4.3 assists, 1.3 turnovers, 3.6 rebounds
and 1.3 steals through three games. In the title game win over Baylor, she was nearly unstoppable with 20 points on 8-of-10 shooting and a perfect 4-for-4 on free throws.
But Harmon is most pesky on defense, where she leads Texas in steals by a wide margin and guards opponents with a ferociousness that belies her diminutive 5-foot-6 frame. Her efforts earned her a spot on the Big 12 All-Defensive team, the only freshman selected. Opponents make it a point to try and avoid having Harmon guard the ball-handler, an often futile endeavor.
On Friday in Texas’ first-round NCAA Tournament win over Fairfield, Harmon was matched up against Stags point guard Rachel Hakes, who had three years and 6 inches on Harmon. Yet Harmon and Longhorns guard Aliyah Matharu terrorized Hakes, combining for five steals as Hakes committed nine turnovers.
“She enjoys making other people miserable and her teammates do, too,” Schaefer said. “It’s the old ‘Hoosiers’ (line), ‘What kind of chewing gum was she chewing?’ Most nights, she can tell you.”
Harmon finished the win over Fairfield with 10 points and a career-high tying 11 assists, her second double-double of the season.
When asked to assess her pros and cons after the game, however, she fixated first on her 2-for-7 freethrow mark and two turnovers.
“I just didn’t like the two turnovers. They were turnovers that I shouldn’t have made,” she said. “I know I can’t be perfect, but I’m really trying to get better at my position.”
A basketball love affair
Born into a family of athletes, Harmon first picked up a basketball at 4. She knew she loved the sport, she knew she could be great and she knew she was willing to work at it. Her father Rodney, who was also a point guard, likes to say that Rori’s blend of confidence and humility is hereditary.
Every year, as Rori’s recruiting profile soared and the competition intensified, her father checked in: “Do you still like the game?”
Every year, Rori responded in the affirmative. And when Rori Harmon says something, you take her at her word.
Cypress Creek coach Jennifer Alexander remembers first catching a glimpse of Harmon on the court as a seventh grader at Campbell Middle School. She could already tell Harmon had a natural gift for playing defense, unquestionably her best skill. But Alexander knew Harmon needed to develop as a decision-maker and a leader, and over the course of four years saw her do just that.
Harmon’s tenacity and determination extended off the court, too. When the Cougars took a team outing to Topgolf, Harmon won. When they played dodgeball, Harmon
won. When the Cy Creek track team practiced, Harmon joined them for footraces.
Alexander’s favorite story is from Harmon’s sophomore year. It was winter break when Alexander received a call from Harmon asking the coach to open the school’s gym. She had arranged to give free basketball lessons to a handful of local kids from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. And as an extra bonus, Harmon started a GoFundMe page and raised money to purchase a pair of shoes and socks for each kid.
“She’s not one that’s going to wait and sit back on something to happen,” Alexander said. “She’s going to make it happen.”
That element was key in why Schaefer recruited Harmon to UT. In his second year coaching the Longhorns, he needed a player to take charge and run the team, someone who is not easily discouraged. Harmon may be young, but Schaefer believes her effort sets her apart.
Still, the transition to playing Big 12 basketball and being asked to immediately average 30 minutes per game for the Longhorns wasn’t a piece of cake.
“I knew he was going to expect a lot from me coming out of high school, but the transition was a lot different actually being in that position than seeing it from a distance,” Harmon said. “I had to get more strength, I had to get more speed, had to be able to run up and down the floor like some of these seniors do, had to be able to guard 94 feet like they do. But I accept the challenge and apply pressure with pressure.”
Harmon averaged 10.4 points, 4.7 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game in the regular season, and was the first Texas player since Joyner Holmes in 2017 to be named Big 12 Freshman of the Year. Although Schaefer was livid that Harmon was left off the Big 12 All-First team (she and Allen-Taylor made the second team), Harmon was unaffected. She is fond of saying that her top priorities, in order, are to get wins and to have zero turnovers.
What Alexander, Schaefer and Harmon’s other coaches have realized over the years is that Harmon doesn’t require much external motivation. She is fueled by a competitive fire that burns deep inside her, the same fire that makes her
“Being better than my previous self the day before yesterday, that’s really what my motivation is,” she said. “I gotta be better individually to help my team.”
Promising future
When Schaefer looks at Harmon, he sees a mash-up of point guards he’s coached over the years at Texas A&M and Mississippi State. Harmon has Jazzmun Holmes’ court vision and motor, Morgan William’s guts and instinct, Sydney Carter’s toughness. All three of those players competed in NCAA title games; Carter won the 2011 national championship with Texas A&M.
“What excites me about Rori is, where she is as a freshman, she’s probably further ahead than everybody I just mentioned,” Schafer said. “All those kids I just mentioned had the motor. Rori’s skill set is probably a little better right now at this time in her career, but now the challenge for her is to get even better in her skill set and don’t lose the motor.”
Before their NCAA Tournament game against Fairfield, the UT players came out to watch a portion of the second half of the UtahArkansas game taking place at the Erwin Center. The crowd greeted them with warm cheers, and Harmon stopped on her way to her baseline seat to beam and wave, her smile pushing up the corners of her eyes as if she was staring into the sun.
She lives for those moments, not because of the adoration but because she enjoys the opportunity to return their love in her own way, on the court. Later, during a fourth-quarter timeout after Harmon grabbed a steal and dished her 11th assist, the Jumbotron camera zoomed in on a fan holding a poster that read, in all caps, “Rori Harmon owns yo team!”
The Longhorns play No. 7 seed Utah in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on Sunday.
Whenever Texas’ “March Madness” run ends, it won’t be the end for Harmon, just the beginning. People who have known her for years and those who are just becoming aware of her can sit back and enjoy the show.
“She’s a special talent, just a dog mentality,” Alexander said. “If I’m needing to go against anybody in any type of competition, not just on the basketball court, I’m picking Rori Harmon. She’s going to get it done. She’s fun to watch, athletic, got a great smile, great face for TV, and she’s just a kid you root for because she just goes so hard. This tournament and the next three years, get ready because it’s gonna be fun.”