Last month at the Players Era Championship in Las Vegas, after Texas took down then-No. 3 UCLA to set up a showdown with then-No. 2 South Carolina the next day, head coach Vic Schaefer took a moment in the press conference to make a bold statement.
“I thought down the stretch, Rori Harmon showed why she is the best point guard in the country,” Schaefer said.
This wasn’t the first or last time that Schaefer made such a proclamation. But Harmon takes it to heart each time.
“For someone like Coach Schaefer, of his stature and his greatness, to think that of me is a pretty big deal and just something that I want to live up to,” Harmon told CBS Sports. “He has such a high standard for me to just come out and play as hard as I can and be that engine that my team needs to be on both ends of the floor.
“Yeah, I’m gonna take that challenge and try to live up to it every day. Not just showing up for games, but just being a good teammate and showing up for practice, playing hard and doing all the things that some people sometimes overlook. So yeah, I feel really happy that he thinks that about me. It feels really nice, but there’s always room for me to improve.”
While some might call it a bold statement, it’s not exactly far-fetched. Under Harmon’s leadership, the Longhorns currently ranked No. 2 in the nation and are 13-0 heading into Sunday’s matchup against South Dakota State (2 p.m. ET on CBS Sports Network).
Harmon is averaging 9.3 points and 7.8 assists per game. In the last four games, she has registered 44 assists and only two turnovers. She almost got a triple-double against Northwestern State with 11 points, 10 assists and a career-high seven assists.
Texas is known as a defensive powerhouse, but the team has improved significantly on offense this season. There were already high expectations for the Longhorns, but they made a loud statement in November by taking down UCLA and South Carolina in back-to-back games. Harmon did a solid job directing her team, but she also hit the game-winning shot against the Gamecocks to win the Players Era championship.
While Madison Booker has certainly been a highlight for the team, and players such as Jordan Lee deserve a lot of credit for embracing bigger roles, the point guard has been the key to tying it all together. Schaefer compares Harmon to Houston Comets legend Kim Perrot, whom he described as “the heart and soul of the team.”
“She made them go. She was their energizer bunny,” Schaefer said of Perrot. “Their toughness kid. She was a little bitty card.”
Earlier this season, Harmon became Texas’s all-time assist leader, and she could be breaking more records before she finishes her master’s degree. She is currently third on the Longhorns’ all-time career steals list and only needs 26 more to tie Linda Waggoner’s record of 346 steals.
“She is involved in so many things,” Schaefer said. “But here is, to me, the separator: it’s what she does on the defensive end. It’s how hard she plays down there. It’s how much love she has for that end. A lot of kids go down there because they just have to. Rori loves that end of the floor. She loves to make an impact on that end. She takes pride in making an impact on that end. Not many kids do that. A lot of them can score, a lot of them can pass, but most of them don’t defend like Rori Harmon. That, to me, is what separates her. She is good on offense, but she is also that good defensively.”
Texas reached the Final Four last season, but Harmon, who was coming back from a torn ACL, was not even playing her best basketball. She and Schaefer had a productive conversation at the end of the season and he has continued to cheer her on during this journey.
“Last season was pretty tough for me, even though we did have a great season and went to the Final Four,” Harmon said. “We just had a conversation, he was like, ‘What do you think is different?’ We acknowledged the fact that I spent most of the year just trying to find myself again, including that the previous summer I didn’t really get to touch the floor as much up until the season started.
“But a lot of our conversations now are like, he’s just really happy. You can tell when he’s smiling at me, he’ll just not say anything, he’ll smile. You can tell he’s just super happy that I’ve found myself again. And I’m really enjoying the game of basketball again. I feel like myself. I’m moving better than ever.”
