Sixth-year guard Dante Harris is closing the final chapter of a college basketball journey that has taken him from the Big East to the ACC to Tennessee State.
When first-year head coach Nolan Smith evaluated his roster ahead of his inaugural season at TSU, one need stood out above the rest: a floor general.
Smith wanted someone who had seen the game at its highest levels, someone comfortable in hostile gyms and late-game situations, and someone who could help anchor a program being built day by day. Harris, who previously played for Smith when he was an assistant coach at Memphis, fit that vision.
“Dante is a winner,” Smith said during a postgame interview with Main Street Media of Tennessee reporter Blain Kellar. “He’s been in big games and tough environments. That experience matters.”
With Harris leading the way, Tennessee State is 9-5 overall and 3-1 in Ohio Valley Conference play as of Wednesday.
Harris’ unconventional path to an HBCU
Harris’ path to Tennessee State has been anything but conventional, even by the standards of the transfer portal era. The 2025–26 season marks his sixth year of college basketball and his fourth stop — Georgetown, Virginia, Memphis and now TSU — with two of those stops connected by Smith.
Harris briefly returned to Virginia before transferring again, joining Memphis in December 2024. The midseason move required quick adjustments, but he became part of a veteran group that captured the American Athletic Conference championship. Smith, then an assistant with the Tigers, had already seen firsthand the impact Harris could have on a team beyond the box score.
That established trust helped guide Harris to Tennessee State, a program seeking stability and leadership as Smith stepped into his first head coaching role.
Read the rest of the story at tsutigers.com.
