Iowa State Cyclones’ forward Sydney Harris (25) goes for a shot between Southern Lady Jaguars’s guard Taniya Lawson (3) and Southern Lady Jaguars’s guard Jocelyn Tate (10) during the fourth quarter in the NCAA women’s basketball at Hilton Coliseum on Sunday Nov. 10, 2024, in Ames, Iowa. © Nirmalendu Majumdar/Ames Tribune / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
AMES — Sydney Harris entered the transfer portal twice.
Each time, Iowa State expressed interest in her, but the first time, she passed.
Harris wouldn’t make that mistake again when she sought a fresh start this season.
“They were my first visit and I committed on the visit,” said Harris, who hopes to help the No. 8 Cyclones (4-0) beat intrastate rival Northern Iowa (2-1) Wednesday at 6 p.m. at the McLeod Center in Cedar Falls. “So definitely should have (done) that the first time around.”
Harris — a 6-1 guard/forward from Edwardsville, Ill. — started her college career at Central Michigan, where she earned Mid-American Conference freshman of the year honors. Then she transferred to TCU for one season before delving into the portal again. ISU quickly convinced her that Ames would be her preferred destination, and she’s made the most of her third college stop.
“It was just a lot of deciding factors that I was looking for that all showed up in, like, the span of 48 hours,” she said.
Harris ranks third on the team in points per game at 11.0 despite coming off the bench. She’s shooting 58 percent from the field and a sizzling 53.8 percent from 3-point range in just 18.5 minutes per game. She’s provided a spark in each of the Cyclones wins — sinking clutch shots when the offense hits a lull, or snaring a steal to ignite a transition opportunity.
“She’s always been kind of a volume scorer,” said ISU head coach Bill Fennelly, whose team has won three straight in the series with the Panthers. “Her percentages have never been that high, but then again, a lot of times, you look at a kid (like her) — and they have to take hard shots because they’re the best player on the team, or they have to take the shot where the other kid (says), ‘Here, you take it.’”
Harris doesn’t operate under that type of pressure with the Cyclones, who feature a pair of stars in Audi Crooks (18.8 points per game) and Addy Brown (15.8 points per game). So she can ply her trade freely, drilling shots as needed while Crooks and Brown draw defenders. Harris can also augment their performances when she’s on the floor with them, making her ISU’s most versatile player in the early stages of the season.
“Coming off the bench is not easy, and obviously me and Addy Brown share a lot of minutes at the same position — and she’s one of my biggest hype dawgs,” Harris said. “Before the game she’s saying, ‘You’re gotta be ready. We’ve all have to be ready.’ It’s a team sport, so I can’t be mad that I’m not starting. … So just being able to produce and do what I can to help us win collectively is all that really matters.”
Especially on Wednesday against UNI, which has won two of the last three meetings with the Cyclones in Cedar Falls.
“If they don’t know it know, they’ll learn about two minutes into the game what they’re getting into,” Fennelly said. “I have a lot of respect for them.”
