USF basketball lands Memphis’ top 3-point shooter

From a transfer-portal perspective, Mother’s Day 2022 may go down as one of the most prosperous in USF athletics history.

A few hours after the Bulls football team landed former Baylor starting quarterback Gerry Bohanon, the men’s basketball squad got a pledge from Memphis long-range specialist Tyler Harris, who helped lead the Tigers (22-11) to the American Athletic Conference tournament final and the second round of the NCAA tourney last season.

A graduate transfer, he has a year of eligibility remaining.

A 5-foot-9 Memphis native who scored more than 2,500 career points at Cordova High, Harris will be playing for the third Division I school of his college career. He played his first two seasons with the Tigers before transferring to Iowa State for the 2020-21 season, then returned to Memphis as a walk-on.

He averaged 8.8 points and 1.7 assists this past season, shooting 39.3 percent (55-for-140) from 3-point range, the most efficient of any Tiger with at least 30 3-point tries. His 192 career 3-pointers rank fifth in Tigers history, and he exits the school only 48 points shy of 1,000 for his Memphis career.

He joins a USF club that shot an AAC-worst 25.3 percent from long range last season and lost scoring/assists leader Caleb Murphy to the transfer portal in April.

The winner of Tennessee’s Class AAA Mr. Basketball Award in 2018, Harris indicated via Twitter in April the decision to leave Memphis a second time wasn’t his own. He becomes the second prominent Division I transfer landed by Coach Brian Gregory in less than three weeks; Kansas State 6-4 guard Selton Miguel arrived in late April and has three years’ eligibility remaining.

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