A Hilton Coliseum crowd is on its feet with three fingers in the air, ready to celebrate a ball known to go through the net. The shot leaves senior guard/forward Sydney Harris’s fingertips without hesitation. Defenders close in, the crowd rising and no doubt the ball swishes through the net.

On paper, Harris is a sharpshooter thriving at Iowa State University, but her journey to becoming one of the Cyclones’ most reliable secret weapons is anything but typical, as her path was shaped by multiple transfers, success, setbacks and powered through a lifetime of basketball woven into her DNA that forged both her confidence and her identity as a shooter.

“I don’t think there’s any question whether it’s the numbers or the system; she’s the best 3-point shooter on our team,” Head Coach Bill Fennelly said. 

Third time’s the charm for Harris, as she transferred between two schools before landing at Iowa State. Her biggest support system and motivator to help her through this transition was her family, more specifically her father, who is her backbone and the sole reason she is where she is today.

“My dad is definitely the main reason why I am where I am today,” Harris said. “He taught me everything I knew and then I just kind of went from there.”

Harris grew up in a family that deeply loved basketball. Her father, Robert Jr. Harris, played the sport at Kaskaskia Junior College and Southeastern Oklahoma State. Her mother played basketball at SIUE, and her brother played at both Kansas State and SIUE.

Surrounded by a family with a deep love for the game, Harris was introduced to the sport at an early age, and despite following in her family’s footsteps, she developed a genuine passion for it.

“I think I had no choice of what route I wanted to go,” Harris said. “My whole family basically has played basketball. So it just kind of came with being a Harris, but I love it, I grew up around it.”

Growing up in a family with a similar collegiate background became almost a secret weapon, in a sense, for Harris. Her dad was her trainer, she grew up learning about basketball, developing a high IQ in the sport and was surrounded by family members, with whom she could learn different perspectives of the game.

“Just having it in the family helped me,” Harris said. “I feel like I have a really good IQ just being around basketball so much. I have a lot of basketball people, so I’m getting a lot of good information from them. I’ve had a lot of good coaches, but I think just really growing up around it has really just helped my game grow from a young age.”

Through her two school transitions, before ending up at Iowa State for her junior and senior seasons, Harris went through a lot of changes and hit rough patches. However, something that always stayed the same throughout her basketball career was her family watching and supporting from the sideline.

“My family’s always kind of been there for me through it all,” Harris said. “I probably wouldn’t have gotten through it if I didn’t have a good support system that I did. Even my friends at certain schools, they helped me get through hard times and then coming here [Iowa State] and trying to move forward from that. It was good to have people who cared about me once I got to my new school here.”

However, before Harris found that strong support system in Ames, Iowa, she first started her collegiate experience at Central Michigan, where she was named Mid-American Conference Freshman of the Year, averaging 17.4 points and four rebounds per game.

“I think Central was definitely my blank slate, right out of high school and I was definitely able to kind of do whatever I wanted,” Harris said. “It was kind of a nice first year to try because it is a different level. Central Michigan and Big 12, it’s definitely different. College and high school are completely different. So being able to kind of get comfortable with doing kind of whatever I wanted at Central was definitely nice.”

From Central Michigan, a Mid-American Conference school, Harris transferred to TCU for her sophomore year, where she experienced an ankle injury at the end of fall camp and was forced to sit out of all non-conference play.

Although not the outcome she wished for in her transfer, Harris still found a positive outlook on the situation, as she was now a player in the Big 12.

“I had a good freshman year, then went to go somewhere bigger,” Harris said. “So I think that transition from like, mid-major to Big 12 definitely was just like getting comfortable with everything and just trying to understand the college pace, the physicalities are different. So I think just kind of having that freedom my first year to try and just get the feel for everything is definitely nicer than going to the Big 12.”

Following her time at TCU, Harris then went on a visit to Iowa State after entering the portal, the same school she passed up on years before.

“Coaches and stuff kind of have their pride when a person turns them down the first time,” Harris said. “They’re kind of like, okay, forget you, and they’d never did that. They showed interest in me when I came on a visit; it was kind of like a no-brainer.”

During her visit to Ames, Harris and her family took the time to look around campus, meet the coaches and get a better outlook of life in Ames. Alongside meeting the staff she would work closely with, Harris was paired up with junior center Audi Crooks as a host, who would drive her around and show her the different aspects and experiences as a Cyclone.

“[Crooks] kind of told me how it was and what it was going to be. I like the transparency from right off the bat because a lot of people say it’s one thing and then we get there and it’s really not,” Harris said. “So I feel like she’s very transparent about what was going on here, and it aligned with what the coaches were telling me and what she was saying. I just felt like the values here were what I was looking for.”

With the help of Crooks, her visit and the support of her family, Harris committed right on the spot to Iowa State in the span of her 48 hours in Ames.

Since then, Harris has become a secret weapon for the Cyclones. Off the bench, Harris holds a 43% from deep over her two years in a cardinal red and gold jersey. Alongside holding a total of 446 points and 179 rebounds across the span of two years.

“She can make shots,” Fennelly said. “You think a lot of a kid who can shoot when they’re open, and they missed your surprise, rather than your surprise, they made it.”

One would think that with all the different obstacles and schools she has been through, she would lose her spark. However, that was deemed untrue as through every stop, every transition and every reset, one thing never changed: when the ball leaves Harris’s hands from beyond the arc, she believes it’s going in.