Harris named SEC Player of the Week
South Carolina guard Tyasha Harris earned SEC Player of the Week honors, the league office announced today, after leading the No. 1 Gamecocks to a pair of victories.
It marks the first SEC weekly award of the four-year starter and two-time honorable mention All-American's career.
Harris was the Gamecocks' leading scorer for the week, pouring in 17.0 points per game, but it was the timeliness of her scoring that made the difference. In Monday's battle of SEC unbeatens, Harris scored or assisted on eight of the team's nine first-quarter field goals - 10 points and four assists in the opening 10 minutes of the game. Her dominance included a buzzer-beating 3 to end the period with a nine-point advantage over No. 9 Mississippi State. When the game was on the line late, again it was Harris who scored the final five points to turn a three-point deficit into a two-point victory when she swiped a steal, hit the ensuing layup, buried a jumper from the left elbow and made a free throw with eight seconds to play after corralling a dangerous in-bounds pass that nearly got away from the Gamecocks. Harris finished with a season-high 23 points and seven assists.
In the first game of the week, the senior became just the second Gamecock all-time to amass 600 career assists with her 11-point, five-assist outing at Missouri. She scored five of those 11 points curing a 16-2 late second-quarter run that shut down the Tigers for good. Harris is just five assists away from tying the Gamecocks' career assists record.
On the season, Harris is scoring 12.4 points and handing out an SEC -best 5.1 assists per game. Through six SEC games, those numbers go up to 13.5 and 5.8, respectively. She has scored in double figures in all but four games this season, with a 2.3 assist-to-turnover ratio.
The Gamecocks are back in action on Sun., Jan. 26, at border-rival Georgia. Tipoff on SEC Network is set for 3 p.m.