By Eric Fontes

Staff Writer

With her quiet demeanor, Tracy Harbut might not look like the most competitive player on the Syracuse women’s basketball team. But her mother and two brothers are quick to say otherwise.

After all, they watched Harbut dominate an all-boys recreational league and play endless backyard pick-up games as a child.

‘She’s always been competitive,’ said Harbut’s twin brother, Tony. ‘She’d get pushed around a little bit by the guys, but she’d just kind of take it in and try to hold her own. She always outshadowed me in basketball. It made me kind of jealous.’

Harbut, a freshman shooting guard, and the rest of the Orangewomen (6-17, 3-10 Big East) will get a chance to display their competitive nature – and end their nine-game losing streak – when they play Georgetown (11-13, 5-8) tonight at 8 in Washington, D.C.

Despite averaging just 8.1 minutes in her first seven games and serving an academic suspension that caused her to miss the next 12 games, Harbut has begun to emerge as a significant defensive contributor for a nine-woman team in desperate need of such an aggressive defensive player. She’s averaged 25.3 minutes and 4.3 points in four games since returning from the suspension. She’s started her last two games.

‘I like her size and athleticism,’ SU head coach Keith Cieplicki said. ‘She’s the player who does a lot of little things. She doesn’t make mistakes over and over. She passes the ball well. She plays good defense. Coaches love players like that.’

And he can thank Harbut’s brothers for most of it.

Though she had an older sister, Harbut grew up in Lexington, Ky., immersed in her brothers’ activities because the boys were closer to her age. Harbut said her passion for basketball started at age 5, when she watched Tony and her older brother, Terren, who is currently a junior on Ohio University’s basketball team, play in a recreational game.

Soon after that game, Harbut asked her mother, Cordelia, if she could play with her brothers the following season. Since there were no girls’ recreational leagues near the Harbut’s home, Cordelia agreed.

‘She’d play against her brothers in the backyard,’ Cordelia said. ‘And they played pretty hard, so I figured she could hold her own (in the recreational league).’

Even then, Cordelia was surprised to see how serious Harbut was about basketball at such a young age. In her first season, when she was 6, Harbut got mad at her coaches because they gave Terren more minutes, Cordelia said.

But those complaints disappeared when Terren moved up to an older recreational league the next year. Tony stayed on his sister’s team and watched from the bench as Harbut led the team in scoring.

‘Tracy developed really well in that league,’ Cordelia said. ‘I’m never sorry that she played with boys. She could handle the ball very well and understood the game of basketball a lot better when she finally began playing with girls.’

Harbut said playing with girls in middle school was much easier, but the transition was still difficult because the two sexes had different styles of play.

‘The (boys’) game is so much more about how athletic you are, how fast you are or how high you can jump,’ Harbut said. ‘I was used to running up and down and just scoring. Playing with girls was more about fundamentals and setting up plays. But it didn’t matter. I liked basketball regardless.’

And she liked it enough to still play with the boys on occasion, still battling it out with her brothers in her back yard.

By the time Harbut was a freshman at Bryan Station High School, she’d already surpassed Tony’s skills, Tony admitted. But her inability to beat Terren pushed her that much harder.

‘Our sibling rivalry was good (for her),’ Terren said. ‘It taught her about always having the will to win. It made her more physical, too.’

Cordelia eventually ended the backyard games because Terren nearly hurt his undersized sister. Still, the skills Harbut picked up along the way helped her blow past most high school opponents. Harbut averaged 13.4 points, 7.3 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 2.3 steals and 2.1 blocks, while earning first-team all-state honors her senior year.

At Syracuse, Harbut is just now starting to show Cieplicki those all-around skills.

‘I know it’s been a long road for her, but she’s been very persistent and is creating a niche for herself,’ Cieplicki said. ‘And that’s what it takes to get on the floor.’

Cieplicki said Harbut seems to fit in well as the Orangewomen’s defensive stopper. SU currently ranks last in the Big East in steals and blocked shots.

‘What I like is she’s pretty steady, and she doesn’t get too up or too down,’ Cieplicki said. ‘She definitely brings a level of consistency. Quite honestly, that’s what good players do.’

Though Harbut might be one of SU’s quieter players, Cieplicki said he’ll accept her playing style because ‘she’s getting it done.’

Cordelia knows, too, that her daughter still possesses that innate competitive streak.

‘Her sibling rivalry with Terren has turned into a more supportive relationship now,’ Cordelia said. ‘But I guarantee you if they got on the court, they would go at each other pretty doggone hard. That’s just that competitive nature they both have.’

Published on February 24, 2004 at 12:00 pm