Dayshanette Harris earns ACC All-Freshman honors

Despite what will likely go down as one of the worst seasons in Pitt women’s basketball history, the future is bright with the emergence of first-year guard Dayshanette Harris, who was named to the ACC All-Freshman Team Monday afternoon.

Harris is just the second player in program history to earn that distinction since Pitt joined the ACC in 2013, joining former Pitt guard Brenna Wise, who made the All-ACC Freshman team after the 2015-16 season.

Harris’s 12.1 points per game tied for the team lead alongside redshirt senior guard Aysia Bugg. When Bugg went down with a knee injury on Feb. 1, Harris became the leader of the team, running the point guard position and leading the team in scoring.

In the seven games she played in to finish out the season, excluding the Duke game that she missed with a concussion, Harris averaged 16.9 points per game, including a career-high 27 points against Boston College. Those 27 points were also the most for a Pitt rookie since former center Marcedes Walker scored 30 against Robert Morris in 2004.

She is also the fourth Pitt first-year player in the last two decades to lead the team in scoring, joining Walker, Wise and former Pitt guard Brianna Kiesel.

Harris’s 12.1 points per game are the fifth most among ACC rookies. She has also been great defensively — her 48 steals this season are the fifth most for a first-year in Pitt history and second among ACC newcomers.

Harris has had 14 games this year where she scored double-digit points, with 11 of them coming during ACC play. She also scored 20 or more points four times, which hasn’t been done by a Pitt first-year since Kiesel in the 2011-12 season.

She also was the only first-year player in the Power Five conferences to average at least 12.1 points per game, 4.0 rebounds per game and 1.7 steals per game.

The Panthers will play this Wednesday in the first round of the ACC tournament as the No. 15 seed as they take on No. 10 seed Notre Dame for the third time this season, with the first two meetings resulting in Pitt losses. In those games, Harris averaged 11.5 points, 3.0 rebounds and 2.5 steals per game.