Charleston twins headline program's Women’s NCAA Tournament debut vs Duke
· Yahoo Sports
DURHAM, N.C. — Robin Harmony believed that if she could recruit players to Beaumont, Texas, she could attract talent anywhere.
After spending six seasons at Lamar University, where she won 115 games and three conference titles, that was Harmony’s pitch to College of Charleston athletic director Matt Roberts back in 2019. A Hall of Fame player at Miami, Harmony was ready to get back to the East Coast and says she “begged” Roberts for the job of leading the Cougars’ women’s basketball program, which hadn’t won anything of significance since the early 1980s when it played for the Division II AIAW championship three years in a row.
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“He looked at me like, ‘if you're dumb enough to ask for it, I'm dumb enough to give it to you,’” Harmony recalled on Thursday. “We kept working and plugging and plugging. Sometimes the basketball Gods weren't very good to us… We kept on moving and moving.”
Seven years after taking over at Charleston, Harmony has the Cougars dancing in the Women’s NCAA Tournament for the first time ever. They’re the only team in the field of 68 making their March Madness debut this year.
Seeded 14th in the tournament, Charleston will face No. 13 Duke on Friday at 11:30 a.m. ET. Harmony and her players reflected on their journeys together while sitting inside the Bill Brill Media Room at the historic Cameron Indoor Stadium on Thursday.
“I don't know if they know what they're in for tomorrow, but they'll figure it out real quick,” Harmony said of her players. “We're hoping we show up, we give our best effort. We know we're playing kind of David and Goliath, but our kids are going to have to communicate and they're going to have to be fundamental.
“We'll see what happens. That's why you play the game.”
Charleston begins its March Madness journey with an interesting resume. The Cougars rank 11th nationally in offensive rebounds per game and sixth in turnover rate. They attack the glass and take care of the ball.
But Charleston is also equipped with something no other team has: The Barbot Twins.
The junior guards, Taryn and Taylor, have powered the Cougars all season. Taryn averages 19.6 points, 5.3 rebounds, 3.4 assists and 2.3 steals per game. Taylor posts 11.3 points, 6.1 assists, 4.1 rebounds and 1.5 steals per game. Taryn is 22nd nationally in scoring and Taylor is 13th in the country in assists.
Over the past three seasons, the New York natives have helped the Cougars go 74-23 overall. And now they’re making history as the leaders of the first Charleston team to play on the sport’s biggest stage.
“It feels good to be part of this group,” said Taryn Barbot, who was the CAA Player of the Year. “This is one of the accomplishments I wanted this year as a team and personally. It's been one of my goals since I got here freshman year.”
Few programs in the country were willing to recruit the Barbot sisters as a package deal. They wanted Taylor, but were unsure about Tamryn. Harmony and her staff, led by longtime associate head coach Randy Javier Schneider, went to as many of their high school games as they could and knew that both players could help the Cougars.
“Taylor was the better player because Taylor was the worker. She was the kid that would dial in the floor, play defense. Taryn was the scorer, but Taryn was so nonchalant about everything,” Harmony said. “We knew that both of them would be able to play, come in, be difference makers. They're strong. They have that body. Really, it's their basketball IQ. They love the game.”
“Anybody would be crazy to separate them.”
After strong sophomore seasons, the Barbot sisters got hit with the reality of the new landscape of college basketball. Harmony said that coaches from 80 different programs called them and tried to get them to transfer. But the twins stayed at Charleston.
“I think it means a lot just to be part of that history here in Charleston,” Taylor Barbot said.
In front of the Barbots and Charleston is the opportunity to make more history. A No. 14 seed has never beaten a No. 3 in the Women’s NCAA Tournament.
But the Cougars aren’t going to back down from the Blue Devils.
“I think we match up with them well,” Taryn Barbot said. “Maybe not height-wise, but I think we can still get it, for sure.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Led by twins, Charleston faces Duke in Women’s NCAA Tournament debut