When Rori Harmon walked into the Texas gym for the time as a freshman during fall 2021, Zack Zillner — the Longhorns’ sports performance coach — had a bit of a reality check after seeing the player who was considered the “biggest” recruit of coach Vic Shaefer’s early days in Austin.
At 5-6 and petite, Harmon was far from imposing despite her No. 10 ranking in the 2021 recruiting class. Because of her size and youth, her Texas teammates that season gave her a nickname that played on both: Fetus. Her high school stats and accomplishments might’ve spoken for themselves, and Shaefer was certainly convinced Harmon could be the floor general the Longhorns needed, but her stature left Zillner … skeptical.
“This is our DI, future All-American point guard?” Zillner remembers thinking. “Like, what are we doing here?”
But it took Harmon about two trips down the floor to change Zillner’s tune. When he saw how Harmon moved, and more importantly, how she took direction and coaching, he realized, “All right, there’s something to work with here.”
But Harmon didn’t just have something with which Texas could work. Harmon had everything Texas needed to make her the best two-way point guard in America.
She quickly bought into the belief that everything she did was…
