Virginia Basketball 2023-2024 Roster Preview: Dante Harris

How will the Georgetown transfer and former Most Outstanding Player of the Big East Tournament impact the Cavaliers this season?

Basketball season is upon us. As we march closer to another exciting Virginia men's basketball season, CavaliersNow is previewing UVA's roster player by player in preparation for the 2023-2024 season, which begins on Monday, November 6th against Tarleton State at John Paul Jones Arena.

Today, we analyze redshirt junior guard Dante Harris. 

Click on the following links to read our player previews for the rest of the UVA men's basketball roster: Isaac McKneely | Taine Murray | Anthony Robinson | Leon Bond III | Elijah Gertrude | Blake Buchanan | Jake Groves | Andrew Rohde | Jordan Minor | Ryan Dunn | Reece Beekman

In the midst of non-conference play last December, Virginia pursued and acquired a commitment from a mid-season transfer portal player in Georgetown's Dante Harris. The surprising announcement was (and has been still) met with some mixed reactions from the UVA fanbase. Even though Harris brings two years of major conference starting point guard experience and he was the Most Outstanding Player of the 2021 Big East Tournament, some have raised concerns about his size and lack of three-point shooting ability creating similar limitations if and when he shares the court with Reece Beekman. 

Harris is 6'0" and a career 26.8% three-point shooter, slightly taller than Kihei Clark and a significantly worse perimeter shooter. Virginia's lineups over the last few seasons have been - let's say "held back" - by having two starting guards, Beekman and Clark, who weren't consistent three-point shooters. That was the case each of the last two seasons and even posed problems for the 2020-2021 team that had a plethora of three-point threats at other positions. Whatever value Dante Harris might add on either end of the floor, it must compensate for his lack of three-point shooting prowess. 

With that said, all of the talk coming out preseason practices - including this glowing testimony from UVA associate head coach Jason Williford in which he told Jerry Ratcliffe that Harris "has the potential to be a better on-ball defender than Kihei Clark" - has been pure excitement about what Harris brings to the table for the Cavaliers. From Kihei Clark's first days as a true freshman on the 2018-2019 National Championship team to his final game last March, he brought high energy, lightning fast feet, and could be expected to come up with an easy steal-and-score almost every game. If it's true that Harris might be even better at on-ball guard defense than that, then the Georgetown transfer might even find his way into the starting lineup. 

We've already seen some evidence to support Williford's claim. In the Blue-White Scrimmage, Harris harassed the usually ball-secure Reece Beekman into a couple of turnovers, giving the reigning ACC Defensive Player of the Year a taste of his own medicine. Disregarding the offensive end of the floor for a moment, UVA's defensive potential could be maximized with a Beekman and Harris backcourt to go along with Ryan Dunn and Jordan Minor, the Defensive Player of the Year in the NEC last season. It should also be noted at this point that Harris is taller than Clark by a few inches, depending on how much stock you put in the heights listed on the official roster - Harris at 6'0" compared to 5'10" for Clark. So, he shouldn't be as much of a liability to get shot over inside the arc as Clark, who was a great defender but couldn't do much when taller guards backed him down and hit jumpers over him. Harris shouldn't be nearly as susceptible to such plays. 

On the offensive end, we're not going to propose any wishful thinking that maybe Harris will be a better three-point shooter than he has been. In his last season playing at Georgetown, Harris attempted exactly one three-pointer per game and made 27.5% of those attempts. There's hope that he could get up to around 30% on a similar volume, but we won't make any assumptions about Harris making drastic improvements in that area of his game after coming to Virginia, even under the tutelage of Tony Bennett, who knows a thing or two about three-point shooting. 

Instead, we'll focus on some other things Harris can provide on the offensive end. In 2021-2022, Harris averaged 11.9 points and 4.1 assists per game. He uses his great ball-handling skills and elite speed to break down the defense and has good court vision to find open teammates and make the right play. In the Blue-White scrimmage, Harris played remarkably well against UVA's patented hard-hedge strategy on ball screens, splitting the double team and getting downhill on multiple occasions. He struggled to finish inside with Ryan Dunn lurking in the paint (shooting 2/9 from the floor), but he was able to get things started with his dribble drive. That'll be especially helpful this season whenever Beekman is off the floor. 

I still don't love the idea of having him play alongside Beekman, as it presents the same offensive limitations as the Beekman-Clark double point guard lineups we saw for the last three years. Neither Beekman nor Harris will benefit from spending time off ball - both of them are better with the ball in their hands. As a 35.1% three-point shooter last season, Beekman is a little more capable of spotting up as a shooter, but that would take the ball out of his hands. Beekman returned to school for another year to prove himself as a first round NBA Draft pick, an objective that will require him to be much more aggressive on the offensive end, something we haven't seen very often if it at all through the first three years of his career. Taking the ball out of his hands in order to make the two-point guard system work with Harris, who simply cannot serve as a shooting guard, just isn't a good idea and won't help UVA's spacing on offense at all. 

Having said that, it must be acknowledged that Harris has been in the program for 10 full months now - he arrived last January - and that gives him a unique opportunity as an "experienced newcomer" with immense familiarity with Virginia's system despite never playing in a game. That puts him ahead of the other transfers and the freshmen and, on a roster without a ton of experienced returners, Harris could play a significant role especially if he's as good as Williford and company are playing him up to be. Harris can and should be a productive defensive asset and there's no doubt that his experience in big games and clutch situations - 50 starts in two seasons, including leading Georgetown's run to the 2021 Big East Tournament Championship - will be of substantial value for this young and relatively inexperienced team. It's therefore up to the UVA coaching staff to find a way to make it work, particularly on the offensive end, to have Dante Harris on the floor. 

Subscribe to the Cavaliers Now Newsletter to receive UVA sports news in your inbox first thing on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

To stay up to date on all Virginia Cavaliers sports news, follow CavaliersNow on social media:

Facebook: @CavaliersNow
Twitter: @CavaliersNowFN

See more Virginia men's basketball news and content: Virginia Men's Basketball on Sports Illustrated

See more Virginia sports news and content: Virginia Cavaliers on Sports Illustrated