Anthony Harris Close to Return, Won't Play Point

Sophomore dressed for Syracuse game for first time in 13 months

For the first time since Dec. 30, 2019, Anthony Harris dressed out for a North Carolina game.

The sophomore guard’s return from knee surgery is imminent. Harris went through pregame warmups prior to the Syracuse game and was in uniform at tipoff, although he didn’t play against the Orange. When he does return, however, he will be playing a different position.

“I'm comfortable with Leaky (Black at point guard),” Williams said, “and Anthony, this week is the first time that he's done anything full court. He's getting closer. Anthony, when he comes in, he would not come in as a point guard. He can do some of those things but he's more valuable off the ball than he is setting it up. Caleb (Love) has had some good practices, didn't play as well tonight. RJ (Davis) struggled the last couple of games and he did some good things for us down the stretch. Guys, I've said a million times, I don't choose who starts or who plays the most minutes, they choose by how they play. The guy that plays the best is going to get the most time. I've always felt like you've got to have depth to play the way we want to play in this league, as difficult as it is, and we're going to play a lot of guys and give a lot of guys some chances.”

While Love and Davis have been inconsistent this year, Williams plans to keep letting them learn by putting them in the fire. “You know it's been tough,” he said. “I keep talking about it, but when you are freshman guards in the ACC and you have no exhibition games, no scrimmages, and all of a sudden you have one game before you start playing in the Maui Invitational and then get out of that and then you're in ACC play. There are no games that you can get some confidence, it's hard to get confidence playing in the ACC. And I think we're going to keep playing those two guys, we played them together a little while tonight and we're going to keep doing that. Andrew (Platek) did some good things for us. Kerwin (Walton) made a couple of baskets, missed a couple that he normally makes but there's a lot of freshman that are getting a lot of playing time for us and it's going to stay that way.”