The person Pitt athletic director Heather Lyke hires as the Panthers’ new women’s basketball coach will have a massive rebuild on their hands.
As of Thursday morning, seven Pitt women’s basketball players had entered the transfer portal, which just opened on Monday.
Starting senior forward Amber Brown was the first to enter on Tuesday. She has since been joined by Emy Hayford, Destiny Strother, Taisha Exanor, Sandrine Clesca and Cynthia Ezeja. And, on Thursday, a source familiar with the situation told Pittsburgh Sports Now, that Dayshanette Harris is also in the transfer portal, bring the number of ex-Pitt players in it to seven.
Like Brown, Harris was one of the first players former head coach Lance White first recruited. She was in and out of the starting lineup over four seasons, starting in 74 of the 102 games she played in. For her Pitt career, Harris played 25.2 minutes per game, averaging 10.6 points, 3.6 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 1.3 steals per game.
Harris was a twice a team captain for Pitt, often represented the team at ACC media days and press conferences, and became the 20th Pitt player in program history to record at least 1,000 career points.
The 5-foot-7 Youngstown, Ohio native was also the fastest player in program history to record at least 700 points, 250 rebounds and 175 assists, doing so in 60 games. And Harris’ 4.7 assists per game in the 2020-21 campaign were the highest for a Panther since Pitt joined the ACC in 2013.
As a rookie in the 2019-20 season, Harris made the All-ACC Freshmen Team and led all freshmen in the conference in scoring during ACC play.
Harris was also largely responsible for Pitt’s lone ACC Tournament win of the White-era, hitting the game-winning shot over Notre Dame in 2020 that sent Muffet McGraw into retirement.
Like Brown, Harris will have one year of eligibility left and will be eligible to play immediately wherever she transfers to.
Brown and Harris were the first and third leading scorers for Pitt this past season.
White was fired earlier this month after five straight losing seasons. Pitt has interviewed four sitting mid-major head coaches for its opening.
The team stunk for the last 5 yrs with these players. Is it really a big deal they are transferring. Can’t get much worse.