Harris Invited to USA U19 World Cup Team Trials
May 3, 2017
COLUMBIA, S.C. ââ’¬” South Carolina guard Tyasha Harris (Noblesville, Ind./Heritage Christian) is one of 33 players, including nine gold medalists from the 2016 USA U18 National Team, who accepted invitations to attend the 2017 USA Basketball Women’s U19 World Cup Team trials May 18-21 at the United States Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. It marks the fourth-straight season a current or future Gamecock has been invited to a USA Basketball trial and the third trials for Harris, who also took part in the 2013 U16 trials.
“These athletes represent the top talent our country has to offer at this age level,” said George Washington University head coach Jennifer Rizzotti, chair of the selection committee. “This is a very versatile group that will give the coaching staff a lot of options. They are all tough competitors, and it is not going to be easy for us to pare it down to the final 12-member team. The committee feels we will be able to select from this group a team that will represent the USA well on and off the court, and these athletes will have what it takes to win a seventh-straight gold medal at the FIBA U19 World Cup.”
Harris was part of the U.S. team that won gold at the 2016 FIBA U18 Americas Championship last summer, which qualified the Americans for the FIBA U19 World Cup in Cividale del Friuli and Udine, Italy, July 22-30. She made her international debut at the event, starting all five games and averaging 20.4 minutes on the court. Contributing in all areas, she was second in the tournament with 5.4 assists per game, including a tournament-high nine against Puerto Rico in the semifinals. Harris shot 57.1 percent from the field for 10.6 points per game, highlighted by a team-high 18 points in the gold medal game against Canada, and swiped a team-best 2.6 steals per game.
In her inaugural season at South Carolina, Harris took the reins of the high-powered offense, starting 27 of the team’s 37 games en route to the program’s first NCAA National Championship, including all 16 SEC outings for the four-time league champion Gamecocks. Her team-high 117 assists were the third-most ever by a Gamecock freshman and included 60 in SEC games, the fourth-most in league play in program history. She added 5.6 points per game, including six double-figure scoring games. Two of those double-digit outings came in the final three games of the NCAA Tournament, during which she shot 53.8 percent from the field to average 6.8 points over South Carolina’s six games at the event.
The 2017 USA Basketball Women’s U19 World Cup Team will be led by a trio of former USA Basketball players and current collegiate head coaches in Suzie McConnell-Serio as the USA head coach and Kamie Ethridge and Charlotte Smith as assistant coaches. Athletes eligible for the U.S. U19 World Cup team must be U.S. citizens who are 19 years old or younger (born on or after Jan. 1, 1998).
