Photo courtesy of Brittany Harshaw’s Twitter announcement.
The constant extension of the NCAA’s recruiting dead period this summer gave Brittany Harshaw a lot of time with her thoughts about where she wanted to be for the next phase of her basketball career. In late August, just before the start of her junior year of high school, the Andover, Kansas native announced on Twitter that she was verbally committing to Creighton.
“I just felt it in my heart,” Harshaw said of her decision. “I’ve known them for a couple years and we’ve really built a relationship. They’ve built a relationship with not only me, but parents and coaches too. We really felt that it was the best place.”
The 6-foot wing from hails from the same hometown as 2020 Big East Player of the Year and Atlanta Dream rookie forward Jaylyn Agnew. Like Agnew, Harshaw has achieved success in multiple sports at the high school level. As a freshman she helped win the Class 5A state title in the 4×400 event. On the basketball court she guided her team to a 22-1 record while averaging 17.1 points per game on 39 percent shooting from the 3-point range on her way to earning the 2019-20 Butler County Player of the Year award as a sophomore.
While she feels her ability to share it and shoot it matches up well with what the Bluejays do on the court, it was the experience she had off of it that resonated with her the most. Particularly the fact that Creighton has not had a player transfer out of the program to play elsewhere since Bellevue West standout Abby Henry moved on to Northwest Missouri State in 2008.
“From the coaching staff to the team, everybody is awesome,” Harshaw said. “I’ve had the opportunity to be on campus four times I think, and I’ve been to camp and to a few games. That experience and also the fact that they haven’t had a transfer in 12 years really said a lot about their program and their culture, and that they really do things the right way … they are really like a family.”
Brittany Harshaw is the first player on board for Creighton’s 2022 recruiting class. The Bluejays added five freshmen — Jayme Horan and Morgan Maly from Nebraska, Mallory Brake and Molly Mogensen from Minnesota, and Emma Ronsiek from South Dakota — to the 2020-21 roster for the upcoming season to help fill some of the void left by graduating seniors Jaylyn Agnew, Morgan Turner, and Olivia Elger.
They received a verbal commit from 2021 South Dakota product Lexi Unruh just before last Christmas. With Harshaw now in the mix for 2022, Creighton’s coaching staff currently has five scholarships open to fill for the 2022-23 season.